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lizzy06 · 4 months ago

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Takami Keigo(Hawks) x Reader Fic Recs!! (Tumblr/Ao3/Wattpad)

My Hero Academia Fic Rec Masterlist

lay low (take it slow) ✨by @andypantsx3/andypantsx3(college student! reader, hurt/comfort, fluff, eventual smut) What even was the right google search for this situation? How do I sew someone back together without passing out? How do I not barf on the pro hero I’m stitching up? Or, Hawks’ game of double agent lands him in the shaky hands of one (1) very unequipped English major.[COMPLETED]

Falling for You ✨by @flannel-cladpika (oneshot, soulmate au, fluff)Every year, on your birthdays, you two will switch quirks.[COMPLETED]

Golden ✨by @meganshinsou-tm (oneshot, soulmate au, fluff) When you touch yoursoulmate for the first time a thin gold line with be etched around your wrists.

Soul Chicken by @hitsuackerman (oneshot, soulmate au, fluff) Soulmate AU where the first words your soulmate says to you are written on your wrist and while Hawks has an absolutely unhelpful phrase written on them, y/n has something….unique.

Bird Hunting | Pt.2:Bird's Nest✨ by @a-n-conrad (oneshot, soulmate au)In a world where your soulmate was found through a symbol appearing on your left forearm, hinting at the quirk of your soulmate, you had to admit that you were lucky. You already knew who your soulmate was. The only issue was that there was really no way for you, an ordinary person, to get anywhere near the number 2 hero.

Petals and Feather✨ by @a-n-conrad(oneshot, hanahaki au, angst with happy ending) You’ve finally gotten a job as a sidekick after graduating from UA about a year before. But after working with Hawks for a few months it starts to get a bit hard to breathe. How are you supposed to fix a case of Hanahaki disease when you happened to fall in love with the most emotionally unavailable hero alive? [COMPLETED]

BNHA Soulmate AU Week Day 4: Save Your Soul by @writing-freak (oneshot, soulmate au, fluff)part of soulmate au week; everyone has colorful marks on their skin where their soulmate touches them for the first time. you’re determined to hide your soulmarks: a pair of hands on your waist.[COMPLETED]

“you really have got nothing to do on a friday night” by @bakugohoex (oneshot, fluff)in which your friend keigo invites you to a pro hero event as his plus one, the event leads to a lot more than you expected.[COMPLETED]

Little Moments by @bnhascribbles (oneshot, fluff)Just Hawk's early morning visit.[COMPLETED]

lavender latte✨ by luxdeoro (coffee shop au, fluff, mutual pinning)You serve Hawks a lavender, oat milk latte. Not only is he hooked on your drinks, but he's hooked on you as well.[ONGOING]

a spoonful of sugar✨✨ by Mossful (fluff, angst) In which the Reader bakes and Hawks eats.[COMPLETED]

Pocket Full of Feathers✨ by forthesanityof1 (fluff, humor) You are an investigative journalist starting at a new agency. A chance meeting brings you and Hawks together and starts some odd behaviors on his part. You dismiss it, but end up meeting the hero again and again over time. Slowly, you start to realize things are occurring both within and outside of your control.[COMPLETED]

(Quirk)y Days✨✨ by wotefokizbrunch(fluff, angst, hurt/comfort) In a world where 80% of the population has some wacky power, it is expected for strange shit to happen on accident, or even on purpose, like that one time a villain hit Hawks with a deaging quirk; he left that morning for work his grown ass self and then you had to pick his 5-year-old-self up from the agency.[COMPLETED]

and i've gotta crow ✨by dashielldeveron(enemies to lovers, ) “We’re engaged to be married.” No, you are not. After an accident that was that bastard Hawks’s fault, you decide to play along with your diagnosis of amnesia, among other things, because how far can you make your former bully bend over backwards for you?[COMPLETED]

Color Blind✨ by HeroAssociation(soulmate au, fluff, angst with happy ending) Takami Keigo, otherwise known as the Winged Hero Hawks, had one such mark. He never expected, nor looked for, the person that would change it. Then he found you by accident.[COMPLETED]

The Harpy by romanceisdeadbutimnot(enemies to lovers, fantasy au, fluff) Desperate for adventure you volunteer to check the monster traps protecting your small village. To your surprise you catch a wounded half bird half man, and decide to nurse him back to health.[COMPLETED]

What's Got Your Feathers In A Bunch? by darkenedniqhts(oneshot, fluff, humor)When Hawks saves you from a villain attack, you hit it off surprisingly well, considering the circumstances. Everything is going great, until he meets your roommate.[COMPLETED]

Compelling/tumblr by @bnhascribbles/ ScatteredScribbles(oneshot, hurt/comfort) Hey listen, I’ve got a lot of baggage when it comes to my quirk. Could you repeat the word “yes” if you’re here of your own free will? Oh, and since you’ll probably say that either way and since I’m an emotionally compromised freak, just know that I’ll never actually feel secure in our relationship. This’ll definitely be a recurring thing, and it’s probably gonna be the reason why we end terribly.[COMPLETED]

Blush by @flannel-cladpika (oneshot, fluff)[COMPLETED]

Headlines✨ by @bnhascribbles(oneshot, fluff) Holding up the newspaper in plain view, you take steady, ominous steps towards his desk. “Any last words, birdbrain?”[COMPLETED]

Stuck In An Elavator With You by @yeahimaloser (oneshot, fluff)he hadn’t really dated anyone before (not seriously anyway), so when he began to develop feelings for a certain someone, he was surprised, to say the least.[COMPLETED]

The Sky is Everywhere by @dira333/Fogfire(oneshot, hurt/comfort, angst with happy ending)Post-Break up is before the Break up…[COMPLETED]

Sometime Around Midnight✨ by 0weCrew(friends to lovers, fluff, hurt/comfort, angst with happy ending) All you wanted to do was enjoy a quiet night looking up at the stars. But fate decided to mess with you instead, and Japan's favorite birdbrain crashed your pity party of one by scaring you shitless.[COMPLETED]

Preening✨ by royalwilds(oneshot, fluff)Hawks loves your hair, playing with it, brushing it, washing it. you realize that it comes from another instinctual nature of his. You try to figure out how to return the gesture.[COMPLETED]

Babybird by Pomenocti(oneshot, fluff)Just Hawks being a dad.[COMPLETED]

Crash✨ by ivan_glee(oneshot, fluff)In which Reader is sunbathing and gets an unexpected visit from the No. 2 hero.[COMPLETED]

A Lungful of Smoke✨ by UnluckyAmulet(oneshot, fluff) As if nearly dying today wasn't bad enough…now you have a crush, too. Damn it.[COMPLETED]

Little Bird by alaskasmonsters(oneshot, fluff) Hawks wasn’t just the charming number two pro-hero the world knew him as. No, he had other sides to him, sides only you, his roommate, had the privilege to uncover. Especially his more birdlike quirks. Like how much he relaxed when people took care of his wings…[COMPLETED]

crawl home to me✨ by Hawnks (supermintfluff)(oneshot, strangers to lovers, hurt/comfort) What is a hero besides determination and hunger? What is a lover if not a resting place?[COMPLETED]

Shiny Things by royalwilds(oneshot, fluff) Hawks has more bird-like tendencies than you initially thought. He likes to present you with odd items as gifts and finally you figure out why.[COMPLETED]

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery by galatiq(oneshot, fluff, humor. coffee shop au) When you put a coffee shop and a nasty storm together, apparently you get Big Bird from Sesame Street crashing into your window. [COMPLETED]

Flowers, Wings, Smirks and Quirks (Ingredients for Love) by ENDisI (oneshot, angst with happy ending, hanahaki disease au) Why was it when you joked about Hanahaki not being real, fate just slaps you awake and tells you "Oh, it's true. You didn't know?" [COMPLETED]

i am your salvation✨ by luxdeoro(oneshot, angst, hurt/comfort) Keigo loses his wings and most of himself, and you're around to try and pick up the pieces.[COMPLETED]

Balcony by RyeTarts(friends to lovers, fluff, slight angst, smut<18+>) After saving you from an office building fire, Hawks thinks that your paths were no longer intertwined. Oh how wrong he would be.[COMPLETED]

Birds Of A Feather by CheerieCherrie(fluff, explicit skippable chp.6) You move to Japan for a change of pace in your hectic life. It doesn't happen, thanks to one chaotic bird man.[COMPLETED]

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sabineelectricheart · 4 years ago

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The Ochre Eagle

Summary: Ferdinand and Byleth have been maintaining a relationship for almost five years. When a letter arrives from Duke Aegir, decisions must be made.

Rating: K+ - Suitable for more mature childen, 9 years and older, with minor action violence without serious injury. May contain mild coarse language. Should not contain any adult themes.

Words: 2300

Notes: Today’s supposed to be Ferdinand’s 859th birthday, I am to guess. That’s a lot, so it ought to warrant a fic, does it not?

Anyways, Gerusia is the name of the senatorial body in the Byzantine Empire. Since there is a ministry cabinet and so, a senate would also to be expected, right?

There was something beautiful about the Aegir coat of arms, which Byleth can admire whenever she looks at her ring finger. The same coat of arms that the letter that came along that morning bore on its seal.

The Imperial tetragrammatic cross, a one-headed eagle and the bugle horn of the Gerousia on its claws. For all her detachment and ignorance of worldly matters in Fódlan, she understood what all of those things meant and the weight they held over her.

Sometimes, when the young professor thought about her boyfriend of almost five years, she was reminded of the eagle and the bugle on that coat of arms.

Eagles are endemic in Fódlan only to the large forests within the mountainous northern Imperial lands, and it was an offence punishable by death to kill or maim a specimen within their borders. The bird was beautiful as it soared high in the air. Being the top of its food chain, it was also ferocious, swooping in and killing its prey in one bated breath.

Ferdinand was a lot like the eagle that adorned and symbolizes his homeland, the both beautiful and ferocious bird, and one that ought to fly so high in the sky that the land-dwellers may never reach it.

Byleth wonders, now, how she had ever let herself fall so completely for him, but then again, there always was something so freeing about his sunny smile, his amber eyes full of determination. She remembers with such clarity the first time she saw that smile directed at her.

*_*_*_*_*

“Hey! Professor, wait up!” A voice called for Byleth as she was leaving the classroom courtyard for the day.

The blue-haired woman whipped around, looking for the source of the voice, only to see Ferdinand von Aegir jogging after her.

“Ferdinand.” Byleth greeted succinctly but politely, as she raised her eyebrow at the young man, looking him over. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

She could not deny that he was attractive and very well put together, but with his usually shorn hair overgrown, he looked a bit like the careless mercenaries on her father’s band.

The Moons were quickly passing them by on her first year as a professor. Her days were mostly unassuming and unremarkable ever since Byleth and Jeralt relocated to the monastery permanently.

“Well, I, uh, is this yours?” He held out a book on proper speech of High Imperial Fódlan.

That was funny. In all her time of classes with Ferdinand, Byleth had never known him to stumble over his words. The boy was always so confident, cheeky even, she cannot help but wonder whether he thinks he is shaming her by asking whether the volume belonged to her.

It did. As she mostly interacted with commoners and uneducated people, she was perfectly fluent in the lingua franca of the continent, the significantly simpler Low Imperial Fódlan. However, ever since she joined the Church, she felt the need to learn more refined varieties, especially the High Imperial, the default choice for Manuela and Hannemann.

“Yes, it is.” She bowed and held out her hand to take the book. “Thank you, Ferdinand. I have not yet realized I had misplaced it.”

“It was no trouble. You have returned many prized items to me these last few Moons.” He smiled softly at the memory, but then hardened his expression once more. “Are you struggling with your language skills?”

“I guess you could say that. The language I am used to is much more…” Byleth bounced her head, looking for the right word. “Well, less refined than just basic.”

Ferdinand snorted, looking down at his toes. He did not say anything. Byleth waited for him to speak but he just stood there, looking down.

“Ferdinand?” Byleth prompted, curious.

Ferdinand whipped his head up.

“I was just going to offer, as I was educated in High Imperial, if you might want a tutor?” Ferdinand said softly.

Byleth was thoroughly confused with the Ferdinand was acting. First, he stumbles over his words, and now one could say he looked bashful! Still, she really was awful with High Imperial, and of course she knew the nobleman’s son to be from the Empire, and therefore he must know the language well. Better than most, for all that matters.

“Yes, very well, I would really appreciate the help.” Byleth smiled up at him. “Are you available tomorrow, after the lunch bell?”

“Yeah, yeah, that works great!” Ferdinand grinned, bouncing up and down. “I apologise, but I am late for my duties at the stables. I must go.”

He looked one last time in her direction and walked back the way he came.

Byleth could only stand there, speechless. In all of the time she has known him, she could not remember ever seeing him smile like that. It left her breathless, standing like a fool in the middle of the promenade, staring after him.

*_*_*_*_*

Looking back on it now, it was much too clear to tell that he had just wanted to spend time with her. Get to know her, be her friend.

He never had that many friends in the monastery, Byleth knows. Ferdinand usually chose to spend his time with his so-called noble pursuits or working with the horses in the stables or the weapons at the armoury. It was rare indeed that he deigned himself with having tea with one of his classmates or decided to spar, and his choice was nine out of ten times Edelgard, the Princess Imperial.

Byleth reached their small cottage, a short walk off the Garreg Mach village. It was rather detached from the religious structure, but still within the monastery’s walls.

It has passed over eight Moons since Ferdinand suggested finding someplace where they could be themselves, away from the rules of the Church and the Imperial nobility. Together, they found this place, abandoned by the sands of time, uninhabited since times immemorial.

After graduation, Ferdinand had refused to return to Enbarr just yet, electing to remain in Garreg Mach, ostensibly to further his training with the Knights of Seiros and provide the Church with his service, as a form of a tithe from House Aegir. It was, of course, all a lie, as he merely wanted to stay with his girlfriend.

Alas, five years have passed, and the Duke was growing impatient. It was high time for Ferdinand to come back to take over the Aegir territory and wed a Hresvelg princess or a Bergliez lady. Though, he could not, as he was already engaged with Byleth, a commoner and former mercenary. It would not go well over at the Empire, and so Ferdinand stalls and stalls his father.

The tiny hovel was small and poor, the kind of place a Duke’s son would never set foot, much less live in, but it was theirs. It was Ferdinand’s boots by the door, his weapons scattered randomly, oil staining parts of the tapestry no matter how much either of them scrubbed. It was Byleth’s grey robe by the door, her favourite mug left on the counter from her morning coffee, hair ties left in every crevice of the couch.

The professor’s usually cool heart hurt looking around the room, and his smell suffocated her, leaving her more choked up than she already was. She looked at the sun out the window, she wagered that Ferdinand should be home, and squared her shoulders. She found him just where she knew he would be, hunched over his working table, fiddling with some strange and horribly rusted blade.

Byleth stood in the door, watching him, for what felt like an eternity. Taking in the pattern of his curls today, the way he bounced his knee, and the back of his shoulders as they rose and fell with each breath.

She knew that he knew she was there. He was well-trained in the martial arts, he must have heard her coming since she set foot on their small produce garden out front. He was a very talented warrior and noble. He was radiant, a glowing force that any man with the power of sight could have felt his imposing presence from a mile away.

All the more reason for Byleth to not be the one to dampen him.

After a while, or probably when he finished whatever he was doing, he placed his project down and stretched. If Byleth was not already feeling devastated, she might have laughed at just how many joints he popped with one movement.

It was a wonder that the former mercenary had managed to shield her feelings from him so well, knowing that he should have felt what was wrong the second he looked at her.

“Hi, angel, how was your day?” Ferdinand finally looked up, a smile softening his features.

The woman could say nothing, staying in the doorway looking away and in absolute silence.

“Byleth?” Ferdinand stood, slowly walking over to her. He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her in.

Just for a second, she told herself, you can indulge yourself in his embrace for only a second. Byleth steeled herself, forcing herself to pull away.

“What’s wrong? What’s happened?” Ferdinand scrunched his eyebrows, staring down at her.

He was unnerved at how unresponsive she was, scared even. Wanting it all to be over, to be able to never have to do it again, the stoic woman prepared herself to speak.

“I think…” She paused to try to control her tone of voice, as to not betray her feelings. “I think we should stop.”

There they were, the words that had been controlling her all day, ever since she read that stupid letter from Duke Aegir, a letter that was not addressed to her, mind you, were finally out.

“Stop? Stop what?” Ferdinand’s voice was measured, his words were slow and tentative.

“This. Us” Byleth looked down, unable to look him in the eyes.

“Us. Us? Why? Why would you ever think that? What has happened? Have I done something?” He stuttered and starts to say whatever comes to mind in despair. “Byleth, you cannot just walk in and say that what is it!”

Frantically Ferdinand tried to catch her eyes, ducking his head down into her view. Byleth shook hard, doing everything she could to hold in her breakdown, despite her efforts, tears began to track down her cheeks. She took measured breaths, counting each one.

“I cannot be the one to hold you back.” Her voice cracked, more tears leaking through.

“Hold me back? Hold me back from what? You could never hold me back!” Ferdinand raised his voice but did not shout. “You have been, you are my professor. If anything, I am where I am because of you!”

“No, Ferdinand, you do not understand. You must return to the Empire, and you must do it alone. You have to and deserve to be the Prime Minister of them all, to have everything you have ever wanted, but I cannot go with you. It has been your goal for so long and I cannot take that away from you. I will not.” Byleth voice shook, but she was determined as ever, trying to just make him understand that this was for him. Not her.

“But I want you, not to be some… Some filthy noble! I want you!” He pleaded.

“Ferdinand, you still do not understand, your place is not at Garreg Mach, is at the Gerousia! My place is here in the monastery, teaching.” Byleth sobbed, backing away from him. “Your father is waiting for you. He has a betrothal contract for you to sign and a position for you to assume. You must arrive to Enbarr before the Moon changes.”

“No, my place is by your side!” He walked towards her, reaching for her.

She evaded his every attempt, solid in her decision and motives. This hovel is nowhere for a noble to live, and sooner or later he would realize that. It might be a little painful now, but if Duke Aegir makes do with his threat of disinheriting his oldest son, if he comes with a militia to punish them, it shall be much, much worse.

“Byleth, please, stop.” Ferdinand begged. “Come here, think about what you are saying. Let us talk about this.”

“There is nothing to talk about, Ferdinand. What I am doing is all for you, for your own good, and I will not reconsider.” She replied.

“The hell with my own good! I do not want this!” Ferdinand tried again, once more advancing.

Byleth shook her head and backed further away, towards the door. Taking a quick look around the room, she thought of every happy memory here. All the times they cuddled on the couch, the one Saint Cethleann Day they spent here, every moment.

Each called to her, and she longed to answer, to stay, but she could not.

Looking once more at Ferdinand, at his state of disarray. The tears in his eyes, his long and silk-soft ochre hair mussed from his hands, his body shaking. It broke her more than any of the words she said did.

“I am so sorry.” She cried, turning around for the final time, grabbing her robe and walking out of the door.

“Byleth! Byleth, wait!” Ferdinand lurched forward, desperately calling out for her.

His betrothed, however, was an agile warrior. By the time he reached the door, she was gone. He fell to his knees then and cried. Cried for Byleth, for their life, for the ring she left him on the dining table.

As Byleth walked away, hood drawn, she thought once again of the eagle. Free to soar high above, without anything shackling him to the ground. A force of nature, unbelievable, and so, so beautiful.

*_*_*_*_*

Fire Emblem Masterlist

Three Houses Masterlist

#fire emblem #ferdinand von aegir

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phantomphangphucker · 6 years ago

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The Bindings Of Time - Chapter 1. Eventually, Even Time Moves On - PhannieMay- Day 22 Memories and Day 30 Moving On

Summary: Danny’s irrevocably tied to time

Warning: character death, funeral, bleeding

(Multi-chapter fic, each chapter falls under the Memories prompt as well as another day’s prompt)

Danny walks numbly and tentatively places the thermos on the table before slumping into the couch. Rubbing his forehead feeling mildly overwhelmed by everything that's happened in the past four days. He hasn’t even really had time to properly come to terms with ClockWork’s death, or fading as it’s called. He still feels like he could only be seconds away from hearing a riddle or getting called for apprentice work, which technically he is.

Fiddling with his hands and mentally ignoring the thermos, “at least his afterdeath ceremony was suiting”. Danny’s still a bit surprised those were even a thing but he should have expected as much for any powerful or respected ghost; and ClockWork is, no was, both. That was even more evident at the ceremony, everything was almost grandiose.

—three day’s ago—

Danny sighs sadly before pushing open the large doors, he’d never really been to this place and now he knew why. It was only for this purpose, the purpose of saying farewell to ghosts of greatness. Looking around he feels both comforted and painfully nostalgic, seeing everything decorated in ClockWork’s purples, greys and blacks; accented by various bits of clocks. Thick rich velvet drapery lining nearly every wall and the seating was all clearly soft extravagant royal purple plush over dark grey wood.

Running a finger over one of the chairs, he hears Skulkers' voice, “this is your first ain’t it, Phantom? Well, they are uncommon. Only the highest get them”. Danny shakes his head a little and looks to Skulker, “that’s almost sad but very right”. After all, ghosts weren’t like humans, more solitary than social and perfectly acceptable for one to just fade away. He knew it was best to just let most go without drawing attention to it. Ghosts didn’t grieve like humans did, not unless the faded ghost had a massive and far-reaching impact. Like ClockWork, the Observants...or like him. Even if Danny knew he wasn’t capable of human death or ghost fading.

Skulker nods as Ember comes to join them, “today doesn’t seem like the time to call you dipstick, so I won’t. Everyone knows you two were unusually close”. Skulker nods, “can’t say any of us know why”.

“Nor do they even know just how close”, the three turn their heads at the sound of an Observant. Danny’s not surprised that he’s the only one to not really reacting strongly to the presence of one of these guys. Pretty well all ghosts have a healthy fear and respect for the Observants. He and ClockWork have been two of the exceptions, Vlad was one as well but he’s never even met one. Skulker and Ember stand a bit stiff and eye the Observant cautiously while Danny talks, “no surprise to find one of you here. Though I fully intend to punch you if you try to use this to bitch about any of his past transgressions against your desires”. Danny doesn’t really care that Ember is gaping at him a fair bit, someone making a threat at an Observant was considered a rather insane and foolish thing to do.

“We would expect no different. I am not here for the ceremony. Ghosts pass, it is expected”, Danny can’t help but cross his arms and glare a bit before relenting and holding out his hand. Letting the Observant place whatever he’s holding in a clenched fist into his. Danny understands that whatever this is, isn’t meant for others eyes so he glances at it sneakily; thoroughly amused that his two ghost frienemy’s don’t even try to peak.

Glancing up at the Observant who merely nods and turns to leave. Danny runs a finger over the time medallion, one that looks so different than what he’s seen before. Tracing the DP symbol inside the gear shape attached to a soft black ribbon, before tucking it to hide away in his cloak. He felt it only fitting to wear the cloak ClockWork had gifted him with as a sign of his apprenticeship, though he kept the hood down. Rich black velvet with white fluffy plush lining the inside, accented by shimmering silver stitching; with the same gear as ClockWork’s for a clasp.

“Normally, I’d ask what weirdness you’re up to now, but I’m not about to question anything involving those guys”, Danny feels a bit of pity for Ember but he’s not completely sure what this means yet. “Yes, some things are better left unsaid. At least until time decides otherwise”, really there’s no way Danny couldn’t make at least a few time jokes. ClockWork would do the same honestly, though Danny has a suspicion not a lot of people know how much of a jokester that man was. Both Skulker and Ember look a bit confused, Skulker shakes his head, “is there nothing to stop you from being a floating joke?”. Danny simply smirks, though there’s not any warmth in it, as a glass case holding ClockWork’s cloak and Staff starts glowing faintly, signifying the ceremonies start.

Thankfully, Danny’s good at reading people now and can tell there’s not going to be any speeches or talking. Instead, each ghost takes their turn in spilling some of their own ectoplasm over the case. Simply touching the case appears to be all that’s needed to make them bleed, removing whatever part of their body they touched it with once they felt they’d given properly. Danny does find it a little disturbing but the symbolism makes sense. Something like paying their dues for all the faded time master had done. Some spill more, others less. This almost makes him annoyed the Observants aren’t here, if anyone owes ClockWork, it’s them. Second behind them would be him of course. Though this would likely be royally messed up to humans, but he was a ghost and this is what ghosts do. The clear rightness of all of this only solidifies that to him, even if he was definitely less comfortable with this than the others. Likely influence from his human half but that was ok and expected.

Danny decides the best rule of thumb is to give whatever feels right to him, though there’s probably not enough ectoplasm or blood in him to really show how much ClockWork had done for him. He also knew he did a lot in return though, so that made it better.

Remembering how ClockWork had simply placed his palm to Danny’s chest when accepting, or more so inviting him, to be his apprentice; Danny places the entirety of his palm on the glass case, around the chest area of the cloak and squarely over top of the head of the staff. Letting his ghost forms green ectoplasm flow until he was fairly dizzy, before leaning against a wall and staring numbly at his palm. It really didn’t feel like enough but he knows ClockWork would have berated him for giving so much.

Kitty walks up to him, glancing at his soaked hand, while Danny rubs his pointer finger with the same thumb. Looking to him sadly, “I’m not going to ask just what or how much he’s done for you. But I can not think of anything that would drive me to give so much”. Danny follows her gaze as she tilts her head back to the case, at least a third of what’s on it is Danny’s. “I would give more if I could and he would’ve berated me for it”, smiling sadly but with fondness, “something tells me, he would have done the same for me”. He knows full well that Kitty’s confused, “in a sense we saved each other. From two different kinds of everything. Self-destruction, being destroyed, corruption. Solitude, weariness, time”.

“I don’t think I get it. But everything with ClockWork is like that”, Kitty pushes him gently, “you even sound like him”. Johnny comes up and nods, “it’s actually a little creepy man”. Earning a laugh from Danny, “we rubbed off on each other, you could say”.

Danny spots one of the FarFrozen waving him over so he nods farewell to the couple, catching Kitty mutter, “how do you even save someone from time? Especially ClockWork”.

ColdStep claps him strongly on the shoulder, Danny finds it nice to not be so much smaller than his odd giant worshipers now. He was even almost as tall as some. ColdSteps voice booms loudly though it’s clear he’s not aiming to be loud, “I am unsurprised to see you here. FrostBite is saddened he could not come himself, but he knows The Time Keeper already knew he wouldn’t be able to”, Danny nods softly, he knows full well how busy the leader of the FarFrozen can be. Danny knows the only reason he wasn’t busy himself is because every ghost instantly agreed to leave Amity be for a while; time’s truce they called it. His fondness of ClockWork was no secret. Walker even went and threatened Vlad to stay away, which he’s still baffled by. After all, Walker’s one of the few that is purely an enemy not a frienemy.

ColdStep hands Danny an intricately embellished ice crystal lily, small clocks, gears and birds winding in between numbers and carved vines. “We know humans often give flowers when one of their own dies, so BluePond felt this right. This maybe be an afterdeath ceremony, but you are human too”, ColdStep nods at Danny warmly while Danny runs his clean hand over the ice petals.

Danny’s currently thankful for being so skilled at schooling his expression and keeping himself from looking weak, otherwise, he’d cry. Doing that around ghosts is never a good idea, so he has to thank not only his secretiveness but ClockWork as well. The man always was big on controlling what he expressed, always preached it as a life necessity. Which in a sense it was, for important powerful ghosts at least.

Nodding back at ColdStep before heading off to place the lily in the same place his hand had bled earlier, sometimes it was easy to forget he was human when doing things explicitly ghostly. He can’t help but get some amusement from his actions clearly confusing most of the other ghosts. Most of whom were not familiar with human ways, he’s sure ClockWork would get some kicks from his afterdeath ceremony confusing people. He’d be flat out proud that it was Danny causing the confusion.

Danny can’t help but smirk as his suspicion is confirmed by the ice lily, that shouldn’t be able to melt, melting across the case and coating it in the ornate icy designs. Muttering with a smile at the case, “you can’t help being extra can you?”. He easily overhears a couple ghosts being completely confused but gives a loose smirk, mood lifted a bit.

Danny’s not really sure what the purpose of everyone taking a bit of the purple velvet cloth with them is, but he’s not going to complain. Touching a few sections till he finds one that just feels right, pulling the piece away he can’t help but blink a bit surprised. The size and shape of it, is exactly the same as a burial flag. Rubbing his left thumb over the fabric, before duplicating himself to fold the fabric like a proper funerary flag would be. He catches Walker looking flat out impressed and as soon as Walker notices Danny’s noticed him, he stands stiff and actually salutes Danny. Danny puffs his chest out a bit before walking, proud and tall, out with his left hand on the top of the folded triangle of fabric.

Upon returning home he places the fabric on the only purple shelf in his room. Sitting back against his bed with a sigh, before pulling out the new time medallion. Tapping on the notch of one of the gears before walking over and placing it on top of the fabric. He’s pretty sure he knows what exactly it means now, and he feels ClockWork has earned getting to “keep” the first Phantom time medallion. Since his existence is, in a sense, frozen in time. But the hands of time must keep moving along.

End.

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magioftheseas · 6 years ago

Text

Lonely Existence

KamuKoma Week Day 7: komaeda's birthday!

Summary: Kamukura's sent to give Komaeda a birthday present and spends the day with him while everyone else is out.

Rating: G

Warnings: None, really. Aside from like...language? Thanks Matsuda.

Notes: Last fic for the week! Yeeeeeeeah, I did it! Of course I included more Matsuda. MatsuKamuKoma is love and life although it’s still largely KamuKoma focused, haha. This is bittersweet fluff, I suppose?

***Alternate Ao3 Link***

Commission? Donate?

It had been as uninteresting a day as any. He was content to do nothing about it, and indeed, because it was Sunday, he predicted such would be the case. However, that did not happen.

“Hey, Kayako. Get the hell up.” A few snaps overhead. “Up, up. I know you’re actually awake, you fucking brat.”

Despite the snarling, he’s of course unbothered. His eyes do open however it is leisurely and Matsuda’s scowl deepens as it looms over him. His face is pinched up in a special kind of annoyance. Ah.

“Something happened,” he said. “Inconvenient, I presume?”

“Stupid plane bullshit. I have to go pick up some ugly bitch before they call animal control.” Matsuda sighed heavily, raking his fingers through his hair. “Someone else would’ve done it, but she’s running late and she contacted me. I’m really not in a good mood right now. I have a favor that needs to be done.”

With that, he lightly smacks Kamukura’s forehead with a wrapped up book.

“This is for Komaeda Nagito in Class 77-B. Thankfully for you, he’s the only idiot in the class still on campus because the rest of them fucked off to some photogenic resort for someone else’s birthday. He was sick so he couldn’t go with. He’s probably depressed but is going to keep on smiling like a fucking idiot so make sure this gets to him?”

“You did not strike me as the type to prepare presents, Matsuda Yasuke,” Kamukura said lowly. “Is this retribution, then?”

“Yeah, it is. He bought me something I couldn’t find anywhere else.” Matsuda rolled his eyes. “Don’t make this fucking weird. It’s only courtesy to buy something for someone in return. I know you should have some basic idea of what that is.”

“...hmph.” He pushes himself up, but takes the gift anyway. “How boring. There is no value in celebrating a day merely for one birth of many.”

“If you’re jealous then I can have you registered for your own birthday.” A pause. “Or you can take Hinata’s. It’s not like he’s really using it anymore.”

“Such trifles do not concern me.”

“Of course they don’t. Well, either way, I expect you to deliver it. Or else I’ll draw on your face while you sleep.”

“...”

“And cut your hair too, while I’m at it.”

“Understood. It will be delivered immediately.”

“Awesome.” Matsuda seemed satisfied enough, turning on his heel to head out with a pop of some joints. He stopped for a moment. “I’m not going to be back until late tonight. The train ride to the airport is obnoxiously far and the flight is probably going to get delayed again, knowing what I’m dealing with. That’s not even accounting for the other bullshit I’ll definitely get saddled with along the way. Whatever. If you get lonely or something...”

Kamukura stared at him blankly.

“Well. You could do worse. Just saying. All the same. Ciao.”

With a wave of his hand, he stepped out. Kamukura finally scoffed.

Such trifles did not concern him in the slightest. But it was not often he left his room. It was even less so that Matsuda Yasuke requested his services. He often only ever did what the researchers told him to do, and whenever Matsuda Yasuke told him to do anything, it was often...less than menial. Always detached.

“Stand still.”

“Don’t whine so much.”

“Relax.”

“You will accomplish many wonderful things, Kamukura Izuru-kun,” the researchers would crow.

Komaeda Nagito hadn’t believed that at all. Not in the slightest.

“Hope can’t be born in a lab,” he would say, breathily and brimming with straining emotion. “Just what were they thinking?”

The answer had been obvious. Apparent. Boring. Komaeda Nagito had just gotten more irritated with him.

Komaeda Nagito...is irritable as Matsuda Yasuke. Around myself. And no one else.

It shouldn’t matter. He doesn’t care. It’s boring. Everything is boring.

“With an attitude like that, you really aren’t going to make any friends,” Matsuda had said once, tone dull and eyes on his manga instead of Kamukura.

Boring.

“You say that but it’s human nature to be social, y’know.”

So boring.

“You can’t seriously expect me to believe you’re not at least a little lonely.”

Boring, boring, boring.

Such concerns were mere trifles. And yet, the crinkling of wrapping under his tightening grip cuts through those thoughts as if they were nothing. Kamukura lightens it as to not damage the gift, and keeps his eyes straight ahead. He walks until he sees the fluttering of birds. His pace does not quicken. He maintains a leisure stride.

Komaeda Nagito is crouched low. He has a remaining, crumpled half of melon bread in one hand, and is spreading crumbs with the other. The birds pick at them. One has nested into his hair.

“You know,” Kamukura finds himself saying. “That provides very little nutritional value.”

“Good morning to you too, Kamukura-kun,” Komaeda replies, without even looking at him. “Out for a walk on this fine day? It’s good luck, isn’t it, to have such lovely weather.”

“No.”

“Well, alright.” Komaeda’s laugh is soft, strained at edges that would’ve been indiscernible to anything less than Kamukura Izuru’s sharp ears. “I mean, I think it is. And with the rest of my class gone, it’s quiet. Relaxed. Not that I prefer being without them, but... They can be noisy.”

“Mm.” It is mildly irritating how Komaeda Nagito is willfully oblivious to the gift in Kamukura’s hands. How it has yet to be acknowledged. Kamukura twitched a little before throwing all caution to the wind and thrusting it forward. “Matsuda Yasuke asked me to give this to you.”

The birds all flee, leaving a flurry of feathers. One even gets stick in Komaeda’s hair. Komaeda, who just blinks blearily at the gift, before nodding and taking it.

“Aha. Haha.” He doesn’t sound terribly enthused, shuffling it rather hurriedly into his bag. “Matsuda-kun...so kind. Please tell him I send my highest regards. He must be quite busy today.”

“Yes. He is.”

“I see.” Komaeda nods again. “Well, then, you can get going now, Kamukura-kun.”

He says nothing to that.

“I can’t imagine that my company is terribly stimulating, so I shall not bother you further.” Komaeda finally stands, brushing himself off. “If you won’t leave, I will. You can have this spot if you want it so badly.”

“I do not want anything.” The words slip before he can stop them. And for once, a twinge is in his features. Hm. “How are you?”

Komaeda still hasn’t picked the feather from his hair. He also still hasn’t looked at him directly.

“I don’t know why you would care.”

“Of course not,” he said. “But I still asked.”

Komaeda’s lips twist before pulling into a smile.

“Fine, of course. Nothing to concern your oh so talented self with. As I said before, the weather is lovely. Atmosphere serene. My classmates are surely enjoying themselves greatly without my worthless presence to dampen their high spirits. Why would I be anything less than fine?”

One reason is obvious.

“You’re lonely.”

“Eh?” Komaeda laughs, more taken aback then amused. “What was that?”

He reaches out and swiftly plucks out the feather.

“You are lonely,” he says simply. “That much is clear. Despite how often you allow yourself to be isolated, you are still plagued by feelings of lonesomeness. How boring. How predictable.”

Komaeda blinks, eyes darting between the feather twirling around between his fingers and Kamukura’s own unmoved and stoic gaze.

Komaeda’s smile twitches; there’s a forceful tug at its corners.

“I didn’t think you cared enough to comment.” His smile widens, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “It’s human nature to get lonely. But it’s for the best. My feelings don’t matter as long as the others can shine. Nothing is more important nor as wonderful.”

“Those are quite the flimsy justifications,” he pointed out.

“Mm, I don’t expect someone like you to understand. Kamukura-kun is all cold logic and rationale.” That smile doesn’t drop even as those eyes narrow sharply. “You wouldn’t know the first thing about being human. I feel sorry for you.”

Sorry?

“It’s not like you asked to exist, after all, it was all that insolent reserve. You really are pitiful, Kamukura-kun. Nothing drives you at all.” Komaeda steps aside. “What are you even living for? I wonder if someone like you is dissatisfied even with existing. Well.” He paused. “It’s not like I’d understand how that would be like.”

Kamukura lets him brush past. But it is not long before he finds himself turning on his own heel and trailing after him. Komaeda doesn’t look back, which is expectable. He’s not the type to do so even when being followed.

Neither of them say anything.

“Do you understand your purpose?”

“...”

“You’re going to be the ultimate symbol of hope, Kamukura Izuru-kun!”

“Wrong. I am a tool for your disposal. A symbol of power and of influence. The product of a boastful legacy.”

“No, that’s not...”

“You cannot fool me.”

“...hah. I suppose I can’t.”

Komaeda Nagito busied himself with humble leisure activities. Walking, admiring the paintings and sculptures throughout campus, relaxing near the gardens, watching the frogs and turtles in the pond, checking out books at the library, sitting by the windows and listening to people practicing in the music room. It was much, as if Komaeda Nagito were restless, but nothing eventful occurred.

Even when Komaeda Nagito got himself coffee from the vending machine, there was a single can dispensed. Komaeda Nagito paused at this, and purchased another.

“Here,” he huffed, tossing it to Kamukura. “You must get thirsty, too.”

“I am as sustained the necessary amount,” was the reply. “This is unnecessary.”

“Aah, is that so?” Komaeda pops open the can, lashes lowering over his unimpressed stare. “Well, I suppose I shouldn’t have expected any different.”

He tilts his head back as he drinks. And he downs it quickly, Adam’s apple bobbling with each swallow.

Kamukura still opens and sips from his own can. It’s surprisingly bitter, and yet his expression gives nothing away. As per usual.

“You know,” Komaeda says. “Even though you have every talent, making the possibilities endless, it feels like even less happens when you’re around.” He chuckles, swirling around his drink. “Is that just your luck?”

“It could very well be, I suppose.”

How boring. Even though Komaeda Nagito’s life is plagued by extremities, they are circumvented by my presence alone. That really is so...

“Boring...”

“It is, but for someone like me you could call it a blessing,” Komaeda murmured. “To have a mundane day pass by, it’s akin to having a normal life, farcical and fleeting as it may be.”

“How dull it must be to long for normalcy,” Kamukura hummed. “You really are a boring person.”

“It was nice,” Komaeda said, firmer than before. “Even if it was because of you. Even if it’s you, I’m still...thankful, Kamukura-kun.”

He hmphed at that, but Komaeda kept talking.

“Living a normal life together really wouldn’t be so bad. Simply being allowed to exist without being excessively punished and rewarded for it—do you think that’s a privilege?”

“A privilege...” The thought does give him pause. He mulls it over, and then, he finds he has no answer. “What a thing to ask.”

“I guess it’s pretty strange to wonder, especially if you’re going to Hope’s Peak,” Komaeda laughed. “But when you weren’t talking, I almost could’ve pretended we were friends and that was even stranger...”

“...because you are lonely.”

“Perhaps. I don’t really want to think about it. My mind goes haywire easily.” He finishes up his coffee. “But, all the same, I don’t really feel lonely right now.”

“Because I am here.”

Komaeda just laughs.

“Perhaps, perhaps. Is it the same for you, Kamukura-kun?”

Is it?

He doesn’t think; the answer that forms is immediate.

“It is not.”

It is immediate—and distasteful.

“Aha, understandable.” Komaeda hurriedly looks away, and his ears are red. “Someone like me makes for poor company.”

“It is not because of you.” Kamukura frowns. “That much I am certain of.”

Komaeda laughs again, but this time the sound is strained. Anxious. It strikes an unpleasant cord.

“I think...” The words trail off into a hard swallow. “I’m going back to my dorm, to open Matsuda-kun’s present and take a look at it.”

Komaeda almost stumbles when he steps away, pausing only to toss his empty can. He glances over his shoulder, but it’s only slightly, only so that he can catch the smallest of glimpses of Kamukura in his glassy gaze. He gives a courteous wave and a barely perceptible smile.

“I’ll see you, Kamukura-kun. Perhaps.”

“Perhaps,” he merely echoed.

Komaeda practically scurried away after that. Kamukura sees him nearly stumble, but he does not fall. He watches until the other is gone. He waits until he can no longer hear that quickened heartbeat without focusing, and downs the rest of his coffee.

It really is bitter.

“You’re really miserable, huh? Well, it’s not any of my concern, but...”

“You are commenting, nonetheless.”

“Yeah. Suppose I am.” Matsuda rolled his eyes. “Maybe because it pisses me off a little.”

There’s nothing to say to that.

“Maybe you should just try and go out more often, it’s not like you’re unable to leave,” Matsuda huffs. “If you just did—anything—you’d be miles better than you are now.”

“There is no point in doing anything when the results yielded are predictable and boring.”

“Factually wrong, dumbass. You know that. So what the hell are you so stubborn about?”

He does not answer that either.

“Geez, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say that you just wanted to remain inhuman and miserable. Or maybe you’re afraid.”

“That is...” He stops himself. “False.”

“Huh.” Matsuda whistled. “All that talent—and you’d think you’d be a better fucking liar.”

He finds himself knocking on the door. The back of his fist strikes it thrice, all intervals in-between the same length. He’s aware that it’s fairly recent from the coat of paint. He would not be surprised if Komaeda Nagito had lost a door to bad luck.

“Mm? Coming.” It’s a soft and muffled call. It does not take long for the door to creak open, and though Komaeda Nagito appears with a smile, it falls in confusion. “Kamukura-kun? It’s...barely into sunset.”

“You were born around this time, correct?” he asks. Komaeda raises a brow.

“I wouldn’t...know if I was.”

“You were. So, then, take this. For your birth.” He holds out the small box, wrapped in a ribbon. “It is a cake. It should be suited to your tastes.”

Komaeda takes it, eyes wide.

“Aha... Haha... Um. Am I dreaming?”

“No. You are not.” He shakes his head. “It is most certainly not a dream.” He frowns. “Do you not want it?”

He can see how conflicted and how twisted Komaeda’s expression gets. How his eyes crinkle at the edges and are, albeit briefly, on the brink of tears. Tears that could have been either joy or grief. Komaeda’s emotions swung wildly, as one would expect from someone who lived so tumultuously.

And yet, this person was still standing, even as his knees quaked.

“You do not have to eat it right away,” Kamukura says, perhaps so that Komaeda perks rather than collapses. “However it will deteriorate in a matter of time. Please do enjoy it before then.”

“I... Mm.” Komaeda nodded quickly, lips pressed tightly together. “O-Okay. Thank you, Kamukura-kun.”

“It is nothing.” And yet, it felt so strangely significant. How strange. So strange. “I shall be seeing you.”

Komaeda tugs on his sleeve before he can turn. Kamukura stares, both at his trembling, pitiful grip, and the twitching, twisting expression. Slowly, it morphed from troubled to—something else.

“Thank you, Kamukura-kun.”

It wasn’t a smile. It wasn’t a frown either. All it was—was heartrendingly sincere.

“Thank you... Really.” He squeezes that small bit of fabric of Kamukura’s sleeve before pulling away. Just like that, he gives an easy smile that conveyed nothing at all. “I’ll be seeing you. Tell Matsuda-kun that the book was wonderful. Well. I’ll tell him that, too, next time I see him, haha.”

Kamukura only nods.

“See you.”

“See you!”

He leaves on that rather discordant note.

When he returns to his room, there is not much else to do besides sit there on the bed and mull.

Komaeda Nagito...really is...

His eyes fall shut as the thought itself trails off into nothing. Nothing but quiet. Time passes, and there’s a knock on the door.

It’s well past midnight. Without even waiting for an answer, Matsuda Yasuke pushes his way in, yawning inelegantly.

“Yoo... Letting you know I didn’t somehow die.”

“I would have been aware either way,” was the blank response. Under the dull light, Matsuda rubs his eyes blearily. Another yawn, and Matsuda nods a few times.

“Right, right... Of course... Jackass.” Matsuda grumbles, and he straightens up. “How was Komaeda?”

“He liked his gift. He had a satisfactory day.” It’s dully spoken, but the words are strangely weighted. “I suppose—even one who exists miserably can find happiness in living.”

“Yeah? That’s—wild to hear you say. Mm... Wonder if I’m dreaming... Maybe I really did die.”

In the blink of an eye, Kamukura stood up and steadied him, keeping him from swaying until he toppled over.

“You should rest as well. I suspect—Komaeda Nagito will be happier to see you in higher spirits, Matsuda Yasuke.”

“Dooon’t tell me what to do,” Matsuda slurred. “But fiiiiine. See if I ever check on you out of worry again. At least you were nice to the kid on his birthday. I gueeeeeess.”

He thinks about Komaeda Nagito and that worthless smile. But he also thinks about Komaeda Nagito and his innocent gaze.

“I suppose,” he echoed. “I suppose...”

Matsuda had already dozed off. Funny, that. Kamukura wondered if Komaeda Nagito was resting as well—if he was sleeping peacefully. If he was lonely.

I want to see him.

What a strange, unsettling thought that was.

That this person exists is—

Kamukura pauses, and shakes his head, helping Matsuda to bed.

I suppose it isn’t boring.

#KamuKoma #izuru kamukura #nagito komaeda #yasuke matsuda #kamukura izuru #Magi fics #MatsuKamu #but not really #MatsuKamuKoma #but also not really #KamuKomaWeek #Yaaaaaaay #another week doooooone #whoooooo #I did it

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pan-roses · 6 years ago

Text

A Royal Mess Up (Moxiety/Logince Fic)

Chapter 2.

Previous/ Next

As they walked along the paths of the woods, taking in all around them and experiencing it as if it was the first time they’d ever step foot outside. Being part of the Royal castle meant everyone was on constant watch, needing to be protected from whatever evils laid behind its doors. The group thought it was silly to be that cautious. Nothing in over a hundred years has ever happened to the Royal family and in their minds, nothing would for another hundred years. So, with all the protection they were under, they couldn't do much without being caught or babied over.

However, when they were younger, they'd found their way to the locked sector of the library in town -they snuck out. Inside it was just a few books, nothing more. Each had its own colour and an emblem: the red book had a Knight's sword on it. The purple was decorated with a single cloud of lightning. A beautiful light blue book had a lovely heart with animals running around it. The mysterious navy Blue had a brain with a spell book under it. And lastly, the orange had a castle on it, surrounded by the four emblems on the other books. They were amazed by these books, and the store clerk allowed them to keep the books, so long as they were in good care.

They all picked a book that called to them the most. Roman chose red, Logan had the Navy blue, Patton picked the light blue, Virgil went to the purple, and Thomas was drawn to the orange. When they'd opened the book, it was this language none of them could read. The only ones who could barely make a sense of them were Logan and Patton. Logan noticed hints of old Romanian language in the writing and Patton's had pictures depicting animals you'd find in the forest. The other three were simply all written, aside for some very confusing and random pictures. Roman's had something of a map with a sword beside it, but the map was half missing. Virgil's had different hand techniques with lightning shooting out, but none of them worked, not that he was trying that hard anyway. And Thomas's seem to have many chapters dedicated to each of the other books, but nothing on his own.

All of this was very confusing to the five, and since they had more important issues to attend to then reading a book they weren't able to understand, they put them away, each in their own rooms. Logan out his at his bedside table, finding rare times to stifle through it in hopes to understand the language. Roman showed him in a place he can't be bothered to remember since he wasn't much for reading anything that wasn't a fairy tale. Virgil placed his thrown on his bookshelf, he didn't read much, only when he was bored, but even then he would rather hang with the others then read. Thomas put his neatly in a drawer, not wanting his father to see and freak out at him for not studying on how to be asking, not that there was a book for that anyway. And Patton continued to read his, mostly for the pictures, since they were so beautifully drawn and he thought the language was interesting, not that he could understand it.

The book soon became a distant memory for most of them, only Patton and Logan truly remembering them. However, from time to time, they all couldn't help but wonder what those books were saying, and why they were so drawn to them.

However, those thoughts were currently not on their minds as they wandered through the woods. The further they walked in, the more it seemed to change from how they remember. The trees went from full of life and blooming to casting over them, dead as a graveyard. The sky that peeked out from the leaves was long gone. And the path they thread on suddenly ended right at Patton's feet.

“Uh… Guys? The path is gone…” Patton told, turning back to face them. From their expressions, they already knew.

Thomas looked the second most worried, right after Vigil. “Perhaps we should leave this place?” He suggested.

“I second that.” Virgil's voice trembled. “Let's go, now, guys.”

Just as they were about to turn and leave this seemly forbidden forest, a wall of thick trees blocked them in a wide circle. No way in, and definitely, no way out.

“Was that always there…?” Patton questioned, knowing the answer already.

“No. No, it wasn't.” Logan answered anyways, trying to compose himself. He wasn't one to get scared easily -just startled, but even this made his bones rattle, as one would say.

Roman pulls his speed out. “Don't worry, I'll cut us a way out,” he said in his normally proud and strong voice. In order to keep the others calm, he must portray strength and leadership.

Just before he could a swing at the trees, a voice echoes around the circle. “Oh, Roman, I wouldn't do that if I were you. Trees had feelings too, ya know? Wouldn't want to hurt them… right?” Suddenly, a snake-like figure appears before them, sitting in a tree that stood out amongst the others. “Hello, my dear pets.”

“Hey, I know you!” Patton perks, walking forwards to the tree and a pointed finger. “You're from that book I have in my room! I'm sure of it!”

Roman was quick to pull Patton's back behind him, his sword now pointed to the being with a scaled faced.

The figured seemed interested in Patton's words. “Oh, is that so?” they jumped from the tree, never making a sound. Despite the scales on their face, they appeared human. “What else was in this book of yours? Did it perhaps have an emblem on it, of a heart with animals?”

Patton gave an excited gasp, tapping on Roman’s in excitement. “Yes! Yes, it does, how did you know?”

“Don't talk with him!” Virgil whisper-yelled at this crush/friend.

The others grew worried about this figure, not that they weren't before. Patton was easy to trust, so the others had to be careful who he considers friend or foe. This one was definitely a foe to be careful of.

“Well, I'm sorry to say that the book is mine.” They said.

Patton frowned. “Oh, I am sorry, I hadn't known it belonged to someone. Would you like it back?”

“Yes, very much so.”

“Oh, well, sure! You'll have to let us out first since it's back at the castle!”

“The… castle?”

Patton gave his natural smile to the figure. “Well, yeah, it's where w--”

Patton wasn't able to finish, as his mouth was covered by Logan's hand. He was feeding the personal information with ease, tricking him into it. They had to be careful.

“We should take our leave. If you’ll excuse us.” Logan turned to Roman. “If you'll please cut us a path.”

Roman realized Logan wasn't saying his name like he usually does when starting a sentence with someone. He was avoiding names to keep distant with the mysterious person.

Roman nodded and went to slash a way through when he was frozen stiff by the figures next words.

“I thought I warned you against that, Roman, Logan.”

The slice went cold, very cold as fog set in around them. They all realize what happened, and this meeting wasn't an incident and the reason why was because never once did they ever reveal their names.

The figures grin spread wide across his face. He got closer to the group, a light just waiting at his lips. “That's right, I know all your little names. Logan, Thomas, Roman, Virgil, and Patton” The fog covered the figure, making his vanish, but his voice echoed clearly through it all. “Now… give me those books your hiding.”

“We don't have them here!” Thomas bravely yelled, regretting it almost immediately. This wasn't a person to mess with and he just screamed at them words they probably didn't want to hear.

“If you don't have what I want, then you won't get what you want.” The voice reasoned.

Before words could be shared, Patton began to feel tingling in the middle of his chest. “G-guys…” His voice whined with worry. He held his chest as the others looked over. “I-it h u r t s.” Patton's voice was becoming static as he started to fade away.

“N-no, wait, please stop!” Virgil begged, trying to grab Patton and tell him he's safe, but his hands went right through him.

“Patton…” Roman said, slowly through a thick and heavy voice. He couldn't be seeing this. This wasn't happening.

Patton gave a smile past his tears that hid behind his glasses. He fiddled with the heart necklace around his neck. It was a gift from the group for his 16th birthday. Inside it, all their names were carved in it, symbolizing their friendship and the many years they would share together. Patton only wished he could do more than give a smile. “It alrig--”

He disappeared. Right before their eyes, their dear Patton was gone.

There wasn't time to mourn, as the next victim was alien motion. Logan felt himself grow smaller and smaller whilst his arms grow heavy. He started to grow feathers, a beak, and bird feet. And that's what he was: A raven as black as the night sky. Before the others could do anything, he too was vanished before their eyes.

“Logan!” Roman called out.

Virgil was next. He, like Logan, was changing and morphing into something inhuman. His hands and feet turned to wolf paws, and his height was shifted to length as he was starting to bare shaper teeth and fur that covered his entire body. He becomes a wolf, so dark purple it appeared black with very hidden hints of a white sparking through the fur. He too was gone suddenly after the transformation.

“No, Virgil!” he cried, reaching out for where he once was.

Thomas was the next victim, his eyes becoming yellow like the figures were, even slit the same. Suddenly, he became a zombie, almost, his body no longer in his own control as he moved unnaturally through the fog, being lost within moments.

“T-Thomas, don't! Please!” he begging, trying to grab hold of his prince, but falling short.

All around him, Roman lost all the people he called family. He tried to help each one, but he failed them all.

The figure purposely left Roman last. He knew he was a Knight from the sword and armour. And what way better to break him than to watch him realize at the notion he wasn't able to save his dear friends.

“Dear, dear Roman, how far you've fallen from the title you give yourself.” The voice mocked. “You call yourself a hero, yet every life here was gone right before your protective hands. How the mighty fall.”

Roman growls, feeling anger and sadness drive his emotions at his sword. He starts slicing through the fog, hoping the snake-headed bastard was still hiding behind it. “Grr, come out, you coward!”

Instead of getting what he wanted, Roman feels himself fading away. He looks to see his hands disappearing, along with the rest of his body. He felt lighter by the minute. His sword fell through his hands, the same sword gifted to him by the king to protect the prince and his friends. However, he failed his job and was paying the price for it.

“I'm sorry…” Roman whispered as he faded away, just as the rest.

“Ah, what a beautiful story this is becoming, isn't that right, my pet?” The figure asked, petting Thomas’ head. “Oh, Deceit, you've done it again… Now… let's see what my toys do next…”

*********

Sorry, this part is a bit shorter than the first. Hopefully, it'll be longer in the future! Thanks for reading!

Taglist:

@romanasanders

@daughterofsomnus

@amazinglissawho

@entitydark

@lamp-calm-sanders

@combine-the-kitchens

@anxiously-unsatisfied-world

(Please ask if you'd like to be added/removed from tag list)

(I added some people who showed interest)

#sanders sides #thomas sanders #prince thomas #Chef patton #patton sanders #advisor logan #logan sanders #Knight roman #roman sanders #messenger virgil #virgil sanders #medevial au #sander sides au #moxiety #logince #a royal mess up #my work #tw deceit #deceit sanders

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yellowmechanicalcat · 6 years ago

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fic: the boy and the bird (AU, plance + gen, part 1)

happy halloween my dudes, here’s the first part of a plance AU that’s been kicking around my drafts for a while.

the boy and the bird Over the Garden Wall AU. Lance and Hunk are lost in the woods; Pidge offers to help. (Slight Pidge/Lance; 1,141 words.)

Part 1/7 (next)

“I think we’ve passed that rock already,” Hunk said, for what felt like the tenth time in as many minutes. Lance grunted in response, just as he had the other ten times, and doggedly continued trekking down the dirt path. The tall, twisted trees cast long shadows on the ground.

“Lance!” Hunk snapped, grabbing his arm and yanking him backwards. The result – a high-pitched shriek of terror Lance would never admit had come out of his mouth – would usually have been gratifying, but Hunk wasn’t in the mood today. Scaring Lance was only fun when he wasn’t scared, too.

“Dude!” Lance protested, once he’d calmed down. “If we don’t keep going, we’ll never get off this trail before nightfall. The sun’s pretty low already and this place is mad creepy, so let’s cut the chatter and keep going.”

“We’re lost,” Hunk insisted. “We’re going in circles.”

“No, we’re not,” Lance said dismissively. He tugged his arm out of Hunk’s grip.

Hunk pointed to a rock on the side of the dirt path. “See that rock?”

Lance did. “It’s a rock. Big deal! There are lots of rocks in the woods, probably.”

“See what’s on it?”

Now that Hunk mentioned it, there was something there. Lance had to squint to decipher the faint symbols below the trailing moss. Maybe it was some kind of marking or rune left by a fellow trailblazer–

‘hunk was right’, it read.

Lance whirled around to glare accusingly at his best friend as Hunk held up the piece of chalk he’d found in his backpack when he’d been looking for a candy bar. “I marked it the last time we came by here. Just admit it, Lance! We’re lost!”

Lance faltered. “But we can’t be lost. All we had to do was keep going north through the woods and we’d get back to the stone wall. It shouldn’t take more than maybe half a day, tops. The woods aren’t big enough to get lost in.”

“These woods don’t even look the same, though!” Hunk protested. “Just look at the trees, they’re all spooky and weird and it’s way too quiet. What if we’re not even in our woods?”

“That doesn’t make any sense! How could we be anywhere else?”

“I don’t know!”

A small bird came fluttering down through the trees and landed on a branch at their eye level. Something about the way it flapped its wings was a little awkward-looking, as if it wasn’t totally sure how to use them. Which was ridiculous, because it was a bird.

The next ridiculous thing that happened was that the bird opened its mouth and spoke.

“Hey, so, you guys are super loud and I’m pretty sure everyone around here knows your business by now, but unlike them I’m actually a nice person so I came to see if you need any help,” the bird said. “So. Do you need help?”

It looked expectantly at Hunk, but he was too surprised to do anything but boggle at the sight of a talking bird.

Lance, fortunately, had retained slightly better control of his mouth. “You can’t be a nice person. You’re a bird.”

The bird looked annoyed. “Figure of speech,” it said. “You know what I mean.”

“Do I?” Lance said. He put his head in his hands and groaned. “I don’t know what I know anymore. This morning I thought I had a good sense of direction and that pigeons couldn’t talk.”

“I’m not a pigeon,” said the bird as it crossly puffed up its feathers.

“Um, you do look a lot like a pigeon, actually,” said Hunk, timidly raising his hand as if requesting permission to speak. “You’ve got the right coloring, you know? All that grey and brown and a little green.”

The bird glared at him with dark, beady eyes. “Fine, whatever, so I’m a pigeon, but you’re still lost. Do you want my help getting out of here or not?”

“Yes,” Hunk said immediately.

“No,” Lance said at the exact same time. He adjusted his dark-colored cloak and haughtily raised his chin. “We’re fine.”

“Don’t be such a stereotype,” said the pigeon with a small smirk. (Who knew birds could smirk?) “Men can ask for directions, you know.”

Lance bared his teeth in a shark-toothed smile. “Asking for directions is for the birds.”

Hunk stepped between them to intervene before the situation escalated and they alienated their best (or only) chance of escape, drawing himself up to his full height for maximum effect. It put him nearly at eye level with the bird on its branch. It probably would have been intimidating if he wasn’t about to cry.

“Please get us out of here!” he begged. “And Lance, don’t antagonize the pigeon. I’m so over these creepy woods.”

Lance shot him a look of betrayal. “They’re not that bad-” he started to say just as something let out a mournful howl. From the sound of it, whatever it was wasn’t very far away from them. The sun had started to set while they were talking and the light coming through the trees was now eerily dim and red. Soon it would be nightfall, and it would be them and the howling thing alone in the dark.

“What was that?” Hunk said, eyes darting around nervously. “Was that, like, a wolf? Are there wolves here?”

The pigeon shrugged. “Not that I’ve seen. It could be the Beast. They say he wanders around the woods looking for lost souls, but honestly, I haven’t stuck around here at night to find out if that’s true or not.”

“Alright, heebie jeebies just intensified,” Lance said, shuddering. He waved his hand in a circling motion to signal it was time to wrap it up. “Hunk, Pidge, let’s jam.”

The pigeon cocked its head. “What did you just call me?”

“Pidge. ‘Pigeon’ takes too long to say.”

“True that,” Hunk chimed in, nodding.

“You could have just asked me my name, you know,” Pidge retorted, fluttering down to perch on top of Lance’s pointed hat as the boy sputtered incoherently.

“… also true,” Hunk quickly agreed before Lance could say anything else that might insult their guide. “Our bad, Pidge. So what’s your name?”

Pidge got very quiet. “I don’t want to tell you,” the bird said finally. “Pidge is fine.”

Pidge directed them to turn off the path they’d been following and keep walking through the trees, occasionally taking off to fly ahead a few feet and check their location, then circling back to them to hitch a ride. Pidge pushed Lance’s hat over his eyes when it landed, making him squawk in annoyance and frantically try to fix his hair. Once the pigeon had ‘accidentally’ pushed Lance’s hat over a few times, Hunk offered to let it perch on his shoulder instead.

They were out of the woods by nightfall. But as it turned out, the woods were not as unsettling as what they found on the other side.

To be continued.

#plance #pidgance #voltron fic #plance au #over the garden wall au #sarah forms voltron things #here's to posting more fic soon because i'm so tired of looking at all these unfinished stories #plancehalloweek2k18 #voltronbingo

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duhragonball · 6 years ago

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[FIC] Luffa: The Legendary Super Saiyan (102/?)

Disclaimer: This story features characters and concepts based on Dragon Ball, which is a trademark of Bird Studio/Shueisha and Toei Animation. This is an unauthorized work, and no profit is being made on this work by me. This story is copyright of me. Download if you like, but please don’t archive it without my permission. Don’t be shy.

Continuity Note: About 1000 years before the events of Dragon Ball Z.

Previous Chapters conveniently available here.

[30 January, 233 Before Age. Planet Server’la.]

Over the next six weeks, Guwar had learned a great deal about his new partners, but very little about the object of their search.

Treekul, the only non-Saiyan in the group, was an alchemical historian. She knew a few techniques for preparing mystical elixirs and so on, but her main focus of study was the lore. Unlike the sciences of chemistry and biology, which made progress through rigorous documentation and peer review, alchemy was a secret discipline, with reclusive masters teaching on a select handful of students. When they recorded their work at all, it was always done in an esoteric style. Simple instructions were expressed as complex riddles. Ingredients were given symbolic codenames which would be meaningless to the uninitiated. Typically, an alchemical scroll promised much: immortality, mastery over living things, the power to transmute lead into gold. But once you actually sat down and read them, they delivered very little: Vague sermons, arcane philosophical tracts, and references to other works which were conveniently unavailable. Guwar had heard about this sort of thing, and always assumed it was an enormous bluff, no different from the way he would use the Saiyans' reputation to make himself seem more powerful than he actually was.

And yet, Treekul seemed to be able to make sense of it all, at least to a certain extent. She had shown him a few documents she had worked on in the past, and explained how she was able to filter the "important stuff" from the "crap", as she put it. Part of the alchemical tradition was to deliberately add a lot of pointless fluff to one's writings, in order to disguise the true wisdom and to trick the unworthy into dismissing their sacred knowledge as nonsense. "Once you've studied enough of their writings," she had told him, "you can start to decode it, and see what they were really talking about."

Treekul hailed from the Planet Clytemnestra, whose people had pale purple skin and dark green hair. Treekul preferred to keep her own hair as short as possible, as she said it helped her focus on her research. "Don't ask me why, but that extra quarter inch of growth on my head just makes me nuts," she had said one day while he saw her applying a trimmer to her scalp. As a result, Guwar noticed that she tended to leave tiny green clippings behind everywhere she went.

Endive, one of the Saiyans, was usually the one flying their ship. She was a smuggler by trade, though she liked to find a good battle between jobs, much the same way that Guwar did when his mathematics skills weren't needed. Like Guwar, she had been forced to scale back her recreational fighting ever since Luffa had begun cracking down on Saiyan activity.

"I tried getting as far from Federation space as I could," she once told him. "I found a nice little civil war on Rofos III. They had mechs, triffles, and all sorts of interesting weapons. I was in heaven... for all of two weeks, and then she showed up and ruined the whole thing. That was when I made up my mind. One way or another, I refuse to be pushed around again."

Endive never had much to say, but Guwar enjoyed hearing it, if only for the chance to admire her looks. She had woven the end of her black hair in to a short, thick braid, which hung between her shoulder blades like a piece of halyard rope from a sailing ship. The bridge of her nose was at a steep angle, which he found aesthetically pleasing, especially whenever she frowned. Luckily for him, she frowned quite often, since the ship's navigation system wasn't quite up to her personal standards. She and Treekul had recruited him into this group by tricking him into thinking he would get to sleep with one or both of them. Watching Endive handle the controls of the ship, he often wished that there was a way to take her up on it.

As for Lesseri, he had dealt with her in the past, though he had always known her to be a ruthless, indomitable warrior. For years he had envied her superior strength and financial success. For example, the ship they now traveled in was hardly luxurious, but it was fast and well-armed, and comfortably quartered six people, which made it far nicer than the broken down one-seater Guwar had left behind on Paxul's Planet. From afar, he had always thought Lesseri to be the model of what a Saiyan should be: a warrior who could go anywhere and do anything she pleased, because she had the might to enforce her own will.

Now that he had lived with her for a while, and seen her ship from the inside, he realized they had more in common than either of them probably cared to admit. Lesseri thought of herself as a weakling compared to other Saiyans, just as he saw himself. This surprised Guwar at first, but the more he thought about it, the more sense it made. There was always a bigger fish in the pond. He had always thought Lesseri retreated from untenable situations because she was so cold and calculating, but the truth was that she was afraid of dying, just like everyone else. She was farther ahead of him in the search for greater power, but the gap between them was insignificant compared to how far they each had to go. In spite of their past enmity, Guwar was beginning to like her. When their quest led to searching a tomb on an abandoned planet, he was happy to join her.

"I killed my mother," Lesseri told him as she punched her way through the wall that surrounded the necropolis. They had been talking about family, and this was where the conversation had led.

"Why?" Guwar asked.

"You know those procedures where you can have your embryos removed from your womb and gestated outside of your body?"

"No, I had no idea you could do that," Guwar said. He had no interest in procreation, and since he lacked a uterus, he cared very little what others did with theirs.

Lesseri shook her head. "Men," she groaned. "A lot of Saiyan women do it when they get pregnant. Back when Planet Saiya was still up and running, they practically ordered people to do it."

"Okay," Guwar said. "What about it?"

"My mother did it through a private company, only she never came back to get me when it was time. Growing up, it kind of pissed me off. My sister, she used to make excuses. She thought mom must have died in battle, or she couldn't pay the bills or something. When I got older, I tracked her down. Wasn't even that hard. She wasn't even trying to hide."

"Must have been a hell of a fight," Guwar said as he doubled checked their coordinates.

"Nah, I checked her out first before I confronted her. She was too close to me in power. I might have won, but there was no guarantee, and I wanted a guarantee. That was how we both ended up training with Luffa."

Guwar nearly dropped his scanning device. "You trained with Luffa?" he asked.

"If you can call it that," Lesseri said. "Mostly it was Luffa and her alien wife scolding us like we were naughty children. The leader of the group, guy named Zaperc, he tried to start this 'movement' where we'd learn to become Super Saiyans ourselves. My mother joined on, and so did I. Didn't want to risk her learning anything that might make her stronger and protect her from my revenge. Anyway, Luffa found out about Zaperc's group and took over the whole thing. Not that there was much to take over, but I guess she didn't like the idea of trash like us taking her name in vain. Anyway, I waited until the right moment, then I rigged a bomb on my mother's ship. As soon as things went pear-shaped, I knew she'd try to run for it, and sure enough--"

Lesseri clapped her hands together for effect. "Boom. Luffa didn't like it, but she didn't care much for my mother either, so she just sort of stood there while I left."

"What did your sister think?" Guwar asked.

"Beats me," Lesseri said. "I haven't seen her in years. She might be dead. Hold on, I think this is it."

Near the center of the necropolis was a large mausoleum that looked like a great stone chrysalis. There were small alien creatures clinging to its surface, and the glossy surface of their chitinous shells made the entire structure seem almost alive.

"Yeah, I think this is the one we want. Let me take some readings before we smash our way in. Wouldn't want to break anything important."

"So what happened after that?" Guwar asked.

"After what?" Lesseri replied.

"After you killed your mother," Guwar said. "I've never gotten revenge for anything before. I wondered what it was like."

"To be honest, it felt kind of empty," Lesseri said. "I didn't regret it, but I'd spent my whole life on that one goal, and then it was over. Mostly, it stuck in my craw that I wasn't strong enough to kill the old bag directly. Luffa had no business giving me her opinion on it, but she was right. It would have been more satisfying to fight her instead of blowing her up. Mom didn't deserve the honor, but at least if I'd beaten her fairly, I would have had something to be proud of."

"I suppose so," Guwar said.

"That was when I started looking for ways to get stronger. I've had enough of people pushing me around like I'm some bystander. Being a Saiyan used to mean something, but lately it just feels like it makes you a patsy for King Rehval, or Luffa, or anyone else who happens to hit the genetic lottery. I wanted to make my own opportunity."

"And that was how you met Treekul?" Guwar asked.

"Exactly," Lesseri said. "I've heard rumors about Saiyans using a technique called 'Jindan' to increase their power. I know we haven't told you much about it, Guwar, but that's only because we don't know much more than you do. It's not easy finding a Saiyan these days, so if there's anything to the rumors, these jacked up Saiyans are staying out of sight."

"If that's true," Guwar reasoned, "then maybe this Jindan thing isn't all it's cracked up to be. The Saiyans who use Jindan still have to hide from Luffa just like the rest of us."

"Could be," Lesseri said, "but it could also mean that they don't want the competition finding out about their secret. If everyone could use it--whatever 'it' is--then we'd all be right back where we started. And even if it doesn't make you as strong as a Super Saiyan, it could still be a big gain. I don't know about you, but I'll take whatever I can get."

"I'm picking up some unusual readings," Guwar said. "But nothing Saiyan."

Lesseri checked her own scanner and then compared her results to his. "Yeah, Treekul was afraid of something like this. We'll have to take a few precautions before we break into this thing. Give me a hand, will you?"

*******

Thousands of years ago, a brilliant scholar was interred in a mausoleum. Over time, his students were buried nearby, and as the scholar's wisdom of the natural world grew into legend, a superstition arose that those who were buried near his tomb would pass on a blessing to their descendants. Centuries passed, and the scholar came to be revered as a god, whose worshipers believed would one day rise from the dead and rule over the planet. It was said that those buried in the necropolis that surrounded his tomb would be revived as his holy servants.

Before the planet's intelligent life forms vanished, their history included several wars fought over this sacred ground. Conquerors thought that by controlling the necropolis, they could convince others of their supremacy. New religions attempted to assimilate the necropolis's mythical status into their own theologies. During more enlightened times, scientists would attempt to study the graves to learn the truth behind the legends. But the scholar's mausoleum was never successfully breached, for when the ancient one was having it built, he planned to take his greatest secrets with him into the hereafter. To ensure that graverobbers would not plunder his great writings, he treated the interior of his tomb with a concoction of his own making. It would make the stone heal itself when broken. In case this was not enough to dissuade intruders, he prepared a guardian, an unliving creature that would become active when fresh air entered the tomb. Its creator had named it Qursss, and it drew strength from the very earth surrounding the mausoleum. Once unleashed, it would not rest until it had destroyed all living things in the vicinity. When its grisly task was finished, it would lumber back into the tomb, which would then reseal itself.

And so, when the first breeze of fresh air entered the tomb in over fifteen centuries, Qursss stirred and reawakened to its strange un-life. A blue flame ignited from a pile of ashes, and then it grew, transmuting into a vaguely humanoid form cast in minerals and the bones of its past victims. Without hesitation, it rushed towards the source of the air current, and wailed its fearsome warning to any who could hear.

"Woe betide you, graverobbers! Know that you have summoned Qursss the Unquenchable, and for daring to defile my master's resting place, you must pay with your lives!"

It saw light from the fissure in the stone, and then the crack exploded into an opening large enough for a person to enter.

"Yeah, I see it now," Guwar said as he peeked inside to look at Qursss. "We'd better lure the thing outside before we proceed."

Qursss roared as it chased after Guwar. "Mortal fool!" it shouted. "You have sealed your doom this day! Qursss shall pursue you to the ends of the--"

It paused at the threshhold of the hole in the mausoleum. Guwar stood just outside, waiting patiently for Qursss to follow him. The only thing missing from this scene was the ground. Guwar was standing in midair.

"Looks like you were right," Guwar said. "This creature's immortal, but it doesn't seem to be able to fly."

Beneath them, Qursss could hear a second intruder, and its primitive intellect slowly realized that she was carrying the entire mausoleum in her arms. "Aw, well, if he’s too shy to step outside," Lesseri said, "I guess I'll have to give him some encouragement!"

The whole structure began to shake, and Qursss lost its balance. Unable to react in time, it tumbled forward, and as it fell, it realized that it was thousands of feet in the air.

It wanted to threaten its enemies, to warn them that such trickery would avail them nothing, since Qursss would follow them and destroy them for as long as it took to restore its master's tomb. But it had already noticed the ocean below, and Qursss knew that its master had designed it to sleep in the absence of fresh air. No, there could be no reprisal. Qursss would sink like a stone once it hit the water, and Qursss would fall dormant for a very long time. Perhaps one day, when the oceans themselves boiled away, Qursss would stir once more, but that would not be for a very long time. There was absolutely nothing it could do. The enemy had won.

Its final thought, as its monstrous body shattered upon the water's surface, was to wonder why its master had never thought to give it wings.

*******

[31 January, 233 Before Age. Interstellar Space.]

"What I don't understand," Guwar asked Treekul, "is how you found that planet in the first place. It was uncharted, and it looked like no one had been there in centuries."

"Geomantic extrapolation," Treekul replied as she ran her finger over the text of the parchment the Saiyans had removed from the mausoleum. "You're sure this was the only scroll you found in the tomb, right?"

"Positive," Guwar said. "What was that you said a second ago?"

She sat up from her bunk and finally looked at him. "Geomancy," she said. "In my line of work, you can't rely on the people who write these things to actually help you by citing sources. Sometimes you have to use other methods to connect the dots. That planet you and Lesseri went to, I don't know what it's called, or the name of the guy who wrote this scroll, but it's written in the same language as the last four scrolls I studied, and uses symbols and notations he would have learned from an older master known as 'Server'. Not his real name, by the way. None of these guys ever used their real name."

"You... you really haven't answered my question," Guwar said.

She pointed to a disc-shaped object hanging from the opposite wall of her cabin. It appeared to be made of wood, and hundreds of tiny characters and sigils were written upon its surface. "That's a geomantic compass," she said. "Normally you use it for aligning ki energies with planetary fields, but a specialist can use it to locate objects bound by special connections. Server's other disciples had most of the information I needed, but not all of it, so I calibrated my compass with information from the scrolls I had, and used that to point me in the general direction of the one that I didn't. It's taken a lot of course corrections to narrow it down, but considering how long the planet's been lost, I think ten days was a pretty decent turnaround."

Guwar was beginning to understand how some of his clients felt whenever he explained the more complicated aspects of probability theory. "Look," he said, "I just want to understand how this gets us any closer to Jindan. Does that scroll mention it? Does that mean it was invented thousands of years ago?"

"No, of course not," Treekul said. "You have to understand how this works, Guwar. All we really know about Jindan-- and I'm using the word 'know' very loosely-- is that it makes Saiyans stronger somehow, and it just happens to share the name of one of the terms used for the golden elixir, a central concept of alchemical thought. Until we find out more, our best chance is to dig through old writings, and hopefully find scrolls and records that were used to invent this particular Jindan. We do that, and we'll have something resembling a lead to what you three are after."

He made a long sigh when he heard this. "It all sounds pretty hopeless," he said.

She smiled and lay back down on her bunk. "Trust me, Guwar, I've been digging up old secrets my whole career. If there's something to be found, I'll find it. It just takes time. And the occasional defiling of an ancient burial ground, but you and Lesseri didn't seem to have much trouble with that at all. Even if it takes us a year to hit paydirt, wouldn't you say it was worth it?"

Guwar supposed he couldn't argue with that. "I guess I'll leave you to your work then," he said as he rose from her chair and headed for the door. "I could use something to eat anyway."

"Hey, drop by anytime," she said. "It's good to bounce ideas off of you. Oh, could you toss me my trimmer before you go? My scalp's getting a little itchy."

*******

[9 February, 233 Before Age. Thalos I.]

Days later, with nowhere in particular to go, the Saiyans decided to land on a planet to indulge in some hunting and gathering. Guwar preferred gathering, as it made more sense from an efficiency standpoint. The ship's sensors could tell him where to go to find abundant supplies of edible plants, and he could collect those much more quickly than he could chase down a comparable mass of wild animals. Most Saiyans didn't look at it that way, and so when Lesseri and Endive chose to hunt large reptiles on the western continent, he wasn't surprised.

What did surprise him was when Endive approached him later, while he was bundling his first batch of roots and berries for the cargo hold. They weren't supposed to meet up for another hour.

"I thought you were hunting," he said.

"I decided to see if you needed any help," she said. "Lesseri has things well in hand."

"She usually does," Guwar said. "But I think I've covered my end pretty well."

"What do you think of our little band so far, Guwar?" she asked.

He finished weaving a simple rope and began wrapping it around a stack of starchy plants he had found in a marsh. "I'm used to working alone," he said, "but so far I'm impressed with the operation. All of you are professional, sensible. Treekul's a bit flaky, but she's an alien, so I won't hold it against her."

"Have you considered what will happen when we succeed, Guwar?" Endive asked. She took a seat on one of the cargo crates and put her palms on her knees.

"We'll all get stronger," he said. "Much stronger, with any luck. I, for one, plan to be able to write my own ticket."

"And what about Lesseri?" she asked. "She's stronger than both of us right now. It stands to reason that if our quest succeeds, she stands to become even stronger still."

"That makes sense to me," Guwar said slowly. "What's your point, Endive?"

"Merely that we should be considering our own separate interests at this stage of the partnership," she replied. "Our working theory is that there are already Saiyans out there using Jindan in secret. They will not be pleased to see three more added to their number. For every Saiyan that learns the secret, it depreciates in value."

"And if we were talking about treasure," Guwar surmised, "sooner or later we'd have to decide if it would be better to split it two ways instead of three."

"I see this as no different, Guwar," Endive said. "The other Saiyans may try to stop us from reaching our goal. But they may find two Saiyans easier to accept into their domain than three. And if they happen to be fairly weak Saiyans--like you and me-- well, we'd hardly be much of a threat to their plans, now would we?"

"What exactly are you suggesting, Endive?" he asked. He tried to keep his tone neutral, hoping not to tip his hand. At the moment, he saw no compelling reason to turn against Lesseri, but he didn't want to appear to reject the idea, just in case she was on to something.

"For the moment, nothing at all," she said briskly. "I simply wanted to share my appraisal of the situation. When the time comes to make a decision, there may not be a chance to confer privately, Guwar. So I thought we should discuss certain... contingencies in advance."

He was about to ask her what contingencies she had in mind, when the communicators on their wrists began to chirp. It was Treekul. She had found something.

*******

The closest thing Lesseri's ship had to a meeting area was the mess hall situated between the cabins and the cockpit. Treekul presented her findings on a small display screen normally used for entertainment purposes. Guwar found her delivery surprisingly polished and scholarly, considering that she was giving it in her pajamas, which bore flecks of green hair clippings from the last three times she trimmed her scalp.

"I know a lot of what I just said went over your heads," she said as she finished explaining how she arrived at her conclusions. "I just want to give you a bird's eye view of what I've done, so you won't think this I just pulled all of this out of my ear.

"We've trusted you this far, Treekul," Lesseri said. "And I think we get the general idea."

Lesseri had put her feet up on the table and crossed her ankles. Endive was busy eating some raw meat from her hunting, while Guwar sat on the table itself. He had some question about Treekul's data, but he decided to save them for when he could speak with her in private. He suspected that the others would do the same.

"All right, then here's the bottom line," Treekul said as she tapped the screen to advance to the next image. The good news is that my theory was correct, and we've been on the right track. We've established a line of spagyrist masters who studied techniques for increasing physical attributes. We're talking about simple stuff, like healing minor injuries, or improving concentration, but each record we've found states that the masters were looking ahead to a refinement of the research. A 'golden elixir', or a perfection of what they had begun to explore. They called that ideal experiment 'jindan', which means whoever invented what we're looking for must have based his research upon their earlier work."

"But the scroll we just found was never used by anyone," Lesseri said. "That tomb hadn't been touched in centuries, and the wax seal on the scroll itself was unbroken."

"Right, but it did give me more information to plug into my calculations," Treekul said. That means my geomantic measurements will be more precise from here on out, and there's a lot less guesswork about where to look next." She tapped the star chart on the monitor, causing it to zoom in on a single star system. "Turns out we'll have to go to the Quadzityz System after all," she said.

"That whole sector is a war zone," Endive said.

"Fine by me," Lesseri said with a smile. "With all the fighting, we can slip in, take what we need, and no one will notice we were there. We might even score some plunder if we have time."

"Yes, that does sound quite pleasant," Endive replied, "but that isn't my point. A stray bombardment could destroy our objective before we even have a chance to reach it."

"Not to mention the mercenaries working that sector," Guwar added. "Saiyans or not, some of them are bound to be stronger than us. If we're not careful, we could find ourselves outmatched. Then we'd be the ones getting plundered."

"It's worse than you think," Treekul said. "I monitored the war reports from that sector, just to get some idea of what we'd be getting into. Turns out the fighting has escalated even more than we knew. Someone brought slorgs into the conflict."

"Slorgs!" Endive said with a gasp. "Then it's only a matter of time before Luffa gets involved! She'd never tolerate a slorg infestation anywhere near the Federation border."

"And that brings me to the 'Bad News' part of my presentation," Treekul said with a sigh. She tapped the screen one more time, bringing up an image from a news periodical. The photo accompanying the article showed a Saiyan with glowing yellow hair and tail, holding a Quadzity armored troop transport over her head. Terrified soldiers were fleeing from her as she smashed the vehicle into a large boulder.

"Luffa's not just going to get involved on Quadziityz," Treekul said. "She's already there."

NEXT: The War Against War

#dragon ball #fanfiction #lssjluffafic #guwar #treekul #endive #lesseri #server'la #thalos i #qursss the unquenchable

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poeticsandaliens · 7 years ago

Note

stella/scully prompt: scully going to visit stella in the hospital after being attacked by paul or even seeing the ordeal happen on screen

Howling Ghosts

This is not set during the events of The Fall, but after. Scully sees Spector attack Stella on tape. This was an emotional gut-punch for me to write, and I hope I did these characters justice.

Rated M for canonical violence, which is why everything is under the cut. Title taken from the song “King and Lionheart” by Of Monsters and Men. Tagging @today-in-fic.

“Stella?” Scully peeks into the study. Stella sits at the oak desk, her blouse glowing sickly peach in the lamplight. She remains frozen in front of her laptop, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. Her fingers clutch at her ribs. “Are you all right?”

A strained sigh escapes Stella’s lips. “He should have stood trial.”

She knows instantly who Stella is referring to. “He should have,” she says softly, “but there’s nothing you can do.”

“I should have insisted he never be left alone. He should have been made to face his crimes, stared into the eyes of everyone who suffered at his hands. He should feel for the pain he caused and feel for every woman who is not sitting in that courtroom. They deserve to see him punished.”

She’s never heard Stella speak this way. Like molten a steel blade, hot and metallic and punctuated with a needle-sharp tip.

“It’s been over a year. What brought up the Spector case?”

“Katie Benedetto killed herself yesterday.”

Oh. She takes a couple steps forward, lingers between Stella and the filing cabinet. Fuzzy black and white footage flickers across the computer screen. “Is that—”

“My interview with her.” A pause. “I should have done more.”

“What more could you have done?” Sometimes she wonders if Stella shoulders the responsibilities for strangers’ suffering because she cannot bear to think of anyone closer. She shoulders the pain in their hearts and dares not examine her own.

The silence prods at Scully’s bones, settles in the crook of her stiff limbs and clings to the wrinkles of her shirt. The video freezes and disappears, and she sees the little loading symbol spiral in the corner of the screen. The next video plays automatically. For a moment she thinks that Stella has set Katie’s interview on repeat—but no, that’s not Katie in the far chair, but a stiff, wild-eyed Paul Spector.

Scully knows right then what she’s watching. She squeezes the back of Stella’s chair until her knuckles turn white. Her eyes flick to the tiny scar along Stella’s eyebrow, shining pale blue in the glow of the laptop screen. Stella gets migraines, occasionally, jarring reminders of past trauma, splitting her open at ungodly hours of night. Scully expects her to stop the video, to close it out or something—something besides sit there, tighten her lips, steel herself.

“Stella, can I stop it?”

Stella shakes her head. “No. I have to know. I have to know what he did to me.” She looks up, and the look in her eyes leaves Scully unnerved. Wide open, drained of color in the screen light like cold, hard silver. “You don’t have to stay here, if it makes you uncomfortable.”

She speaks with assurance, but Scully can hear the stony cadence behind it. Something in Stella is determined to process the footage alone. If she can face her injuries, watch the attack play out before her eyes, she has won. It’s a test—to prove to herself once and for all that she needs no one but herself. She can withdraw.

Scully knows better; she knows trauma doesn’t work that way. She knows it better than most people, and she suspects Stella does too. Stella, who stares into the eyes of women who have been raped, who have survived assault and abuse, and promises to listen, to be present, to try to bring them justice. Stella, who can promise them nothing more, because she knows—how well they both know—life makes no guarantees.

Stella, who championed the healing power of human connections for anyone but herself.

The footage plays on.

Scully has seen it all before—the young officer at the door, the hard-knuckled detective laying out a case. Pushing for a confession of guilt, jabbing at the volatile criminal and hoping for a reaction. She’s seen it so many times that she doesn’t need sound to know what’s happening or what’s being said. Stella’s told her the things she said to Spector, the way her rage bubbled out and the she just kept talking. How at some point, it stopped being her job. How she doesn’t regret a single word.

Every time he moves, Scully’s fingernails dig into the back of the chair. She won’t leave, no matter how many hairs stick up on her spine. It reminds her of Donnie Pfaster’s trial, a lifetime ago, only Paul Spector is not a scaly monster lurking beneath human skin, but a living man. An ordinary man, one might even say.

It always satisfied Stella to call Spector ordinary. In his monstrous acts, normal was the one thing he aspired not to be. He aspired to earn a place among the Donnie Pfasters, the faeries and demons and forked-tongued divinities, mythologized for the horror they inspired—so evil they will never be forgotten, stooping so low they were deified. She hates it, how they burned themselves into human history in a way Spector never will. As tides turn, as everyone he burned himself into grows old and weary, Spector will be forgotten. The injustices that created him will not. That is what he deserves. That is what they all deserved.

He stands up so quickly his chair topples over backwards, and the young man who reaches out to stop him is unprepared for the blow. Scully is a medical doctor, trained in defensive combat, and she knows a broken arm when she sees one. Spector’s image flashes around the screen; it happens so quickly doesn’t realize she’s stopped breathing until she takes in the foreboding silence around her.

She sees Stella’s fists clench. On the screen, he knocks her over with one kick, cracks her ribs with another. Scully can’t believe how tiny she looks there, a bird-boned woman in a sharp suit. A glimpse of her blood in grey scale. And then he’s on top of her, fists tearing into her, and another face flicks into Scully’s mind: The Brazilian psychic surgeon, his right hand shoved into her sternum.

Jesus Christ. She isn’t prepared for this. She looks at Stella. Her lover’s icy gaze is fixed on the screen. Her cheekbones look like they’ve been whittled with a pocket knife. The light glints off her scar like the flash of a sniper rifle. Her chin trembles almost indecipherably, the tremor in her fingers much more pronounced.

To Scully’s surprise, Stella’s hand slips into hers, fingers locked tightly together. When the pixelated Spector hurls his fist at her zygomatic bone, she squeezes Scully’s hand. Scully tries to ignore the throb of her circulation being cut off. She lets the computer screen blur and looks past it to the dark office wall.

Why do people cling to hands when they’re hurting? She wonders if this is how it felt to Monica Reyes, when she bit down on a stick and squeezed the life out of Reyes’s fingers as she delivered William. She wonders if this is how Mulder felt, reaching for her hand across an antique hardwood floor as they bled through ghostly bullet holes on Christmas Eve. She wonders if her mother felt this same reeling cocktail of love and despair every time she sat beside Scully’s hospital cot and held her hand and saw cancer suck dry her daughter’s body.

She is not leaving. She always appreciated Mulder’s tenacity when she was injured, his insistence that it was okay to hurt. It drove her mad when she was young, but she always admired his deep empathy. She tries to channel just a little of it now.

She watches as several officers rush into the room and peel Spector off Stella’s body. She is so still that Scully almost forgets how this all ends, her shape curled into itself like burning paper. A man in uniform reaches for her shoulder, and at first she pushes him off, so decisively he takes a full step backward.

On her feet, her impossible stilettos wobble until one gives out entirely, She crumbles over, caught by the guards. The silence is broken by a sharp intake of breath, and Scully turns to see Stella’s jaw stiff and open. Stella presses her hand to her mouth, squeezes Scully’s fingers so tightly they’re tinted blue. Tears roll down her cheeks in a wash, and Scully’s breath catches. She has never before seen Stella cry.

It is this that shatters Stella’s resolve: when her ankle gives out in its heel, when her legs no longer support their own weight. It is not the violence but what comes after. The moment you realize you have been desecrated, that you are in blinding pain over which you have no control, and you must rely on someone else to heal. Scully has felt it.

Scully offers Stella her other hand, and she takes it. She presses it to her chest, above the button of her satin blouse, holds it there. Scully can feel her heart beat beneath it. She can feel the wet spots where Stella’s warm tears dropped off her jaw.

She has never been held like this. Not even when Mulder reached for her in his bright orange prison garb like she was water in the Sahara. This is a different need, not an explosive gesture of yearning but an ache, that starts out dull but seizes her over time.

“I know,” Scully whispers, because she does. She’s felt this pain, that wracks Stella. “I know.”

The tape ends, and the screen goes blank. It aches. God, how it aches.

#the x-files #dana scully #stella gibson #television: the fall #today-in-fic #fox mulder #txf fanfic #paul spector #stella x scully #tw: violence

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fantasyimmortal · 7 years ago

Text

Satisfy Me

Saeran POV. MM Fantasy AU. Fic Rating: Explicit

Tags thus far: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Rough Oral Sex, Vaginal Sex, Explicit Language, Derogatory Language, Masturbation

I kept my eyes on this demon she called Bates. I laced my fingers together and stretched my arms upward. With a twitch of my wings I lunged for the demon. Gliding past him I sharply changed direction to attack him from behind. My claws were primed and ready to spill blood, if any was flowing through his veins. My eyes widened at the last second as he spun one of its six-taloned hands behind itself.

I stumbled back, narrowly missing any serious injury. I pressed a hand to my chest before I pulled it back. I heard him grunt in satisfaction as I looked at my blood covered hand, the sunlight making my blood shimmer like a jewel. Fun? Yes, I suppose this could be fun.

Gevirah stepped forward and pet the hideous thing again. “What a good boy.” She cooed. “Make him pay for hurting me.”

I flicked my hand, scattering the blood that covered it. I could feel slight anger at her putting _____ hand against this rubix-cube of body parts. I jumped into the air as he leapt towards me, almost too quick for my eyes to follow. He reached up and grabbed my ankle before I flew out of his reach.

My lips curled in a snarl as he turned his body and threw me into the ground, face down. Before the dust settled he jammed his talons into the calf muscles of my left leg. “Fuck!” I gasped and raised my head at the physical pain I had never experienced before.

With his talons still embedded in my leg, I growled as I twisted my body and my swung my right leg up. Catching him off guard I was able to hook his head behind my leg, pinning it to the ground. With one quick sweep of my claws I slashed at his arm but couldn’t sever it. I grit my teeth as his talons in my leg twitched in response.

I put more pressure on his head as he tried to free himself. Grabbing his arm with both hands I began to pull. I heard tendons snapping over the sound of his agonized wailing. He howled when his muscles began to tear away from his shoulder. I adjusted my grip on his arm, noticing it wasn’t bleeding much, and with one more strong pull his arm ripped away from his body.

“Nooo!” Gevirah screamed.

I stood up and pulled the talons from my leg. With a low chuckle, I threw his arm at her feet, my blood staining the ground beneath it as it dripped from the ends of the talons. “You’re right, this is fun.” I said to her as I brushed the dirt off my pants.

I looked over at the beast still writhing in agony. I smirked and looked back over at Gevirah as I continued to dust myself off. Tears full of anger began to well in her eyes. Her fists were balled up at her sides and her body was shaking.

“You’ll pay for this!” She screamed, the tears spilling over her lashes and trailing down her cheeks. “Bates! Get up! You’re stronger than this!!”

I looked over my shoulder at the demon. The howl he released from his rapidly decaying chest cavity made the birds in far off trees squawk and retreat for their own safety. With a low growl he sprung towards me and began to attack me with his still intact arm. His speed had almost doubled what it was before. I ground my teeth together to keep from making any noise of distress as I tried my hardest to dodge his aggressive offence. I crossed my arms in front of me trying to shield myself from any vital blows, as it became increasingly obvious I would just have to wait him out to get any hits on him.

I don’t remember how long I was on the defensive but my body was giving out and sank to my knees. Breathing heavily, I added pressure to my deeper wounds and focus my energy on those key spots as my body tried to heal itself. The demon was breathing just a heavily trying to regain his stamina. He’s injuring me faster than my body can heal. I glanced over at Gevirah, an evil smile playing at her lips.

“End him, Bates!” She said before letting out a round of high pitched laughter.

My legs faltered as I tried to stand. It was no use, the blood loss I had endured and the energy I was expending to heal myself caused me to fall back to my knees. I looked at the monster as he stood up straight and walked slowly towards me.

My vision was beginning to blur and I tightly closed my eyes and shook my head. I tried to look back towards my imminent death. Fuck! I just can’t focus. I looked down at the hooves as they settled in the ground, inches from my knees. I didn’t have to look up to know he was preparing a finishing blow.

I closed my eyes and my shoulders slumped. How depressing. A Prince of Hell brought down by someone’s pet. My lip curved back in a disgusted smile. “Fucking disgusting.”

I waited for pain that I never felt. Instead I felt something like a warm rain sprinkling my face. Confused, I opened my eyes and was shocked at what I saw. The taste of blood on my tongue was more proof of what I saw. _____’s body was hanging before me. The talons of the beast protruding from her chest.

“You….bitch. H-how dare you…you step in the way…” Gevirah coughed, blood dribbling down the side of her mouth.

“You…won’t kill him!”

My heart sank to my stomach when I heard ____’s faint voice before she gasped in pain. The beast quickly pulled back his hand and I pushed through my own pain to catch _____’s limp body. Her blood was almost hot in contrast to the temperature of her skin. Her eyes rolled back into her head before her head lulled to the side and she fell unconscious.

“Fuck fuck fuck!!” Digging my finger into one of my rapidly closing wounds I generously coated my finger with my own blood. I quickly drew an infinity symbol with intricate webbing around it on my chest before slamming my hand against it. My entire body pulsed before the pain a felt left me.

A few seconds later I heard a voice that I never thought I would ever be happy to hear. “What the hell is going on here?!” Luciel’s worried expression was irritating but oddly comforting at the moment.

I stood up as quickly as I could and handed _____ over to him and his eyes bulged. “I’ll fucking explain later. Just take her home!” Thankfully he only nodded but turned towards the direction of the cabin. I grabbed the hood of his clothes and he looked at me questioningly. “Not her home you fucking idiot. Our home!”

“Our home?”

“I said I’ll fucking explain later! Just make sure she fucking lives!” I flung an arm in his direction. “Now get lost!”

He looked at the symbol I had drawn on my chest and his brow furrowed. “Don’t be stupid and—“

“I said get fucking lost!!”

With another nod he wrapped his wings around the both of them and vanished. I watched as the dust settled before I turned back towards the monster that impaled her and its master simultaneously. She somehow got control of her body again and jumped in the way to save me.

I looked back at the spot that she and my brother were at and I felt a pit form in my stomach. I didn’t want her to die and it wasn’t for my sake that I wanted her to live. I smirked as I chuckled to myself when I realized I didn’t give a fuck what happened to me at this point. I looked down at the ground as if I was peering down into Hell itself.

“You’re a fucking idiot, ______.” I spoke as if she could easily hear me. “Don’t you dare fucking die!” I need to tell you how incredibly fucking stupid you are. Turning back to the beast I rolled my shoulders and cracked my knuckles. “Let’s finish this, you fucker! I can’t wait to tell your master how this ends.”

#Satisfy Me #AU fanfic #mystic messenger #SaeranPOV #Demon Saeran

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stunudo · 7 years ago

Photo

Teamwork Makes the Dream Work:

A Criminal Minds Fan-fiction Case 1 Part C

Featuring: Female Reader as she joins the Team

Setting: Early Season 12

Parts A B

A/N: This is a piece about how someone with some quirks fits into the BAU. I realized I haven’t tagged anyone in this fic yet, so you might want to go back if you want the really awkward stuff. xoxo Stu

Your name: submit What is this?

“Garcia, please tell me these people don’t think I am psychotic!” You had broken down after you had gotten into your hotel room. There was spotty wifi and scratchy comforters, but you got your own room, thank Turing.

Penelope was still cranking away with all the work the team constantly sent her. Reid should put his brain to use and find a way to clone the woman already. “Y/L/N, no one thinks you’re psychotic. Though I did hear something about high anxiety and possibly PTSD?” Her voice lifted as she was trying to rush through the gossip, but also needed to be honest with you.

“Ugh, I just don’t like being touched. I almost elbowed Alvez in the face and now I have some tragic backstory, aces.” You mumbled.

“Don’t worry, as long as you don’t actually hit anyone? I am thinking they will forget it after the case. First day jitters and what have you. But, well, JJ thinks you’re good though.” You were pacing the room, wearing your extra large Galifrey Academy tee shirt and some socks. Your hair was wet and you were debating between Hearthstone or Peggle before lights out.

“Jareau likes me?” You were surprised. “Huh, guess I don’t give myself enough credit. Alright, thanks for listening to me Garcia, feel free to ignore me at any point.”

“My newest comrade-ette, no. I am here for the whole team. Well, minus the other newbie.”

“Nighters Garcia!”

The small town cop had pulled over a pick up going 62 in a 45 mile per hour zone. He was pissed that these people couldn’t get it through their heads that the law was the law. It wasn’t even seven in the morning, where did they need to be in such a hurry? He sauntered up to the driver’s side eyeing the man in the side view mirror. When the officer was level with the window, he saw the girl’s face pinned in fear. The driver had a knife to her throat and a rag tied around her mouth.

The officer instinctively pulled his gun. “You drop your weapon!”

The man in the driver’s seat laughed and popped the door on the cop. Knocking him back in to the traffic on the two lane highway. The young woman screamed into her gag. The driver couldn’t react fast enough, the policeman was roadkill. As she slammed onto her breaks, the pickup did a U turn and left the traffic stop like nothing had happened.

You were waiting for the team at the SUVs when Hotch called you. “Why didn’t you answer your wake up call?”

“Sir? I am no longer in my room. I have been up for an hour.”

“Right. I guess I will see you at the cars.”

“Yep.” Anxious bird may not be getting the worms, but at least you hadn’t overslept. Rossi was surprisingly the first one outside. He nodded at you, you waved sheepishly back. Once Hotch was outside, it was all business.

“We have a call from a sheriff in Shawano County. Apparently an officer was pushed into traffic during a speeding ticket. The driver that struck the officer says he had his gun drawn and was pointing it at the driver and passenger. The dash cam footage is silent, but there was clearly a female restrained by the assailant.”

“Any indicators it was Abigail Brown?” Lewis asked.

“Nothing certain.”

“I am assuming Garcia is already tracking the plate?” You followed up.

“He probably already changed vehicles.” Alvez pointed out.

“The unsub would have to search for another vehicle out here. Especially with a victim to control. Chances are someone spotted them or the ditched truck.” JJ added.

“Reid I want you and Alvez to head south, talk to the driver and see what you can get from the footage they have.”

“Y/L/N, Lewis and Rossi I want you back at the precinct in case Garcia finds something.”

“JJ and I will head up to the campus and meet with the roommate.”

The car ride was much more reserved than the one with Jareau and Reid. Rossi drove, playing generic elevator music in the background. Lewis asked about his car. Rossi asked about hers. The drive was only about forty minutes of you listening and not speaking.

The evidence boards were intense and necessary. After examining the autopsy photographs you noticed weird marking on each of the bodies. One of the women had a tattoo so it hid the reoccurring image. It appeared to be a brand of some sort.

“Jareau?” You had dialed without sharing with Lewis and Rossi, but they were listening anyway. “I think these are rituals. There is the same symbol on each of the bodies.”

“Alright, I will tell Hotch. Nice catch.” She answered and hung up.

Rossi was on his phone once he understood your discovery. “Garcia, I am sending an image, see if it belongs to a cult or religious sect.”

Lewis pursed her lips while glancing at the photographs. “If this is ritualistic, then we have to be prepared for anything.”

“Suicide by cop?”

“Worse, martyrdom.”

Hotch put the whole team on the line for an update. “Abigail Brown’s roommate confirmed she had been involved in some new activities. But she didn’t know anything about it being a cult.”

“Sir?” Garcia interjected. “It was definitely a cult. The symbol is ancient, but surprise surprise it has been “re-branded” for the internet age. The screen name loops back over many servers, but the credit card for the chat service used for the “Night Owls” site lands us right back to Langlade County. And not many people have internet service there, it is too expensive to install the fiber-optics.”

“Garcia tell me you have an address.”

“Sending it to your phones.” Garcia confirmed. “Please be safe!”

“Alright, everyone head back to the hotel. We are all going in together. I will have JJ coordinate with the locals as we drive back.”

The drive down the dirt road was a horror movie in action. You had been assigned to Reid and Alvez’s SUV. The Sheriff that had called the team onto the case was driving Rossi and JJ because he knew the area. Hotch and Lewis were in the last vehicle, trailing three squad cars.

Reid was going over building records that Garcia had sent. “It appears to be a large house with a garage and two other out buildings.”

“Plenty of room for an ambush, great.” You muttered.

“We’ll be fine, just focus on getting the victims out and we will handle the rest.” Alvez explained.

“I hope you’re talking to Reid, because I am not on damsel duty here, Alvez.”

Alvez and Dr. Reid exchanged a look. The taller man shrugged, his lips doing that motion from the first trip. Was it annoyance or was it amusement?

“Noted!” Alvez chuckled. “Hotch will give the actual assignments once we park anyway.”

The large green space was surrounded by miles of forest and marshland. If one of the captives had managed to escape you doubted they would have survived without some help. The space around the buildings was hilly and strewn with pine trees. You thanked Babbage that it was still daylight, you strapped on your standard issued vest and felt like a jock for the first time, ever.

“Do we huddle and get a pep talk, too?” You mused to yourself, but Rossi heard you.

“Not usually, but I think it’s because Morgan was the one with the whistle.” He hinted. Your head tilted with interest, but Jareau shook her head meaning ‘wrong time and place, children.’

You followed Alvez to the main house. Reid and Lewis took one of the out buildings. Jareau and Rossi took the garage. Hotch and the Sheriff took the building on the farthest end of the clearing. The infiltration began simultaneously. Doors flying open and calls of “FBI!” or “Federal Agents”.

The house was a bungalow style with a ‘Silence of the Lambs’ style stone basement, luckily it did not come with the signature hole dug below. The rooms were well kept, but abandoned. After clearing all the rooms, you followed onto the garage. Alvez kicked the fender of a pick up truck, “This is the truck from the dash cam footage.”

You nodded, “You see Jareau or Rossi?”.

“Here!” Jareau’s voice called from the back of the unlit room. There were tables of Bunsen beakers, torches, and distilling equipment. “No sign of the unsubs, but I think we can say that it was Abigail Brown in the truck this morning.”

Rossi mused, “I am guessing the chemistry set is how these guys are funding their little ‘family’.”

The four of you dispersed to the remaining buildings when shots broke out. You readied your weapon, moving to secure an entrance. The buildings were identical from the outside. Carmel brick work with obscured glass block windows. Entrances on the northern and southern walls only. Suddenly you heard someone scream, “Go!”

Recalling your training: you kicked in your door, “FBI!” The room was arranged like a classroom, with desks in rows and some computers lining the far wall. Alvez came in the other side, sweeping the area for the unsubs or victims or any movement at all. The server they had set up was pretty sick, but you held yourself back from drooling. “We’re clear, Alvez.”

“Alright, we need to keep moving. Catch up with the team.”

You closed your door behind you and followed the muscular man out the door he entered. When you stepped outside it was chaos. Reid was limping outside with a young woman under his arm. JJ was holding the door screaming, “Out! Everybody out!”

There was smoke wafting out the door and Hotch and Lewis carried the Sheriff out between their strong shoulders. There was a moment of panic when Rossi wasn’t accounted for, but finally he staggered outside with the rest of the team. In his arms was a three year old girl, screaming at the top of her lungs. “Daddy! Daddy! No!”

Your heart tore, this little thing was the unsub’s daughter. Once the door swung shut a group of thuds rolled through the brick building. Was that an explosion? It must have been a poorly executed one. Hotch was on the comms with the locals, calling medics. You regrouped, checking on each team member and confirming the victims had been secured.

You took a minute to calm down from your first big case against the house. You were watching Reid, JJ and Alvez smile and play with the toddler. Rossi and Hotch were having serious conversations for serious grown ups. Lewis was taking notes while talking with Abigail Brown. Suddenly a hand came up and clamped down on your mouth. Instinctively you dodged and spun out from the attack. You kicked the unsub’s knee in and pulled your firearm. “Hands! Hands in the Air, Asshole!”

The BAU was there in a fraction of a minute, six guns trained on the second unsub. “Dey found you Un-Craig, dey found you!” The little girl sing-songed from behind the row of agents. She giggled at the apparent game. You holstered your weapon and made the arrest. After loading the unsub into the back of the squad car, you turned and looked at the crime scene.

It was a good day: your team saved some people and neutralized some big bads. “Hey Jareau, you think that little girl will be all right?”

Her big blue eyes searched you and nodded. “Yeah, they will find her a good family. Little one like that is already so tough.” You accepted the answer, though more questions flitted through your mind.

“Hey, Y/L/N?” Jareau asked. “It’s J.J. My friends call me J.J.”

@dontshootmespence @penelope-garxia @reiding-and-writing @milkandcookies528 @criminal-minds-fanfiction @rachficrecs @reidbyers @holagubler @speedreiding

#Garcia ftw #Criminal Minds #TwMtDW #criminal minds fanfiction #reader x bau #criminal minds fanfictions #season 12 #bau #tara lewis #fbi bau #penelope garcia #luke alvez #spencer reid #jennifer jareau #aaron hotchner #david rossi #garcia saves the day #teammates #what do you mean there are no ships in this fic

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kittynightterrors · 5 years ago

Text

Hello, since I’m about to drop a story with this bastard it’s time I introduce an OC! You’ll find him and another look like Dylan. It’s left over from RP days. Sue me.

Before I get into the fun stuff I should probably give a bit of backstory. I was/am a very big RPer, and often times I would take who I was RPing at the time and just bend them into an AU. So Talib is born from the idea of Stiles being a villain in the Nolanverse. He’s not a genderbend of Talia, but rather a replacement of her? She exists, but almost like a mother to him than anything. So for this, he was the child in the Pit. If that makes sense. Anyway, who needs canon?

Full Name: Talib al Ghul

Reason for name: Talib means student so combined with his last name he’s the Student of the Ghoul. NGL, always figured that ... uh R’as would name his kid some stupid shit. Nickname: Genim “Stiles” Stilinski Reason for nickname: Talib could not intern under Mr. Fox with his given name, so when his paper work for forged he came up with an American name. One that wasn’t too terribly fake sounding. Age: He has no idea, but he would guess early to mid twenties. Sex: Male Place of Birth: The Pit Birthday: Unknown. Currently living in: Gotham, specifically Wayne Enterprises Occupation: Former intern at Wayne Enterprises, current prince of Gotham Sexual Orientation: Bisexual Social Status: Feared Relationship Status: Bedding the Masked Man

Appearance

Body Build: Lean muscular Height: 5′11″ Weight: 150 lbs Skin color: Pale Distinguishing Features: Moles and freckles everywhere

Mental/Emotional State

Archetype: Villain I guess, if that’s an archetype Act before thinking/Think before acting?: A mixture of both, when someone actually gets under his skin he will act before thinking. Emotion-wise, generally: Generally, Talib is very level headed, but can air on the side of manic a lot of the time. The longer he stays in power over Gotham, however, the more his mental state starts to degrade.

Conversation

Swears?: Not really. Cussing had only been used to establish dominance among henchmen when he first came to Gotham. Now that he’s in the position he’s in, he has all but dropped them from his vocabulary.

Strengths/Weaknesses

Strengths: Talib is skilled in hand to hand combat as well as small fire arms.

Weakness: Hard to say, he’s not the most trusting person in the world. If that’s a weakness or not, only time will tell.

Secrets:

If he was honest with himself, he’d like to imagine a world where he could live a normal life. He’s seen the movies and books, seen what a teenager is supposed to do. There’s supposed to be romance and heartbreak, school and not.. not this. Not murder and running Gotham. It’s nice, but is this really a life? He didn’t think it was, but it made his father happy, it made Bane and Barsad happy. So, it must make him happy, right?

Fears:

Revolt. He knows it’ll happen, whether it’s from Gotham’s citizens, from his own henchmen, or the other nut bags lurking the streets beneath Wayne Tower. His time is running out, and he knows it’ll end bloody.

Dreams/Goals

He’s surpassed his goal of killing Batman and controlling Gotham. It was easier than he had expected honestly. Once Gotham’s symbol of Justice was gone the whole city seemed to crumble. Even when John Blake had tried to step up and take his place it was easy to clip the Bird’s wings.

Relationships

Family:

R’as al Ghul - His father, his teacher. Their relationship was strained for many years after the rescue from the Pit, having only had Bane in his life for his whole life. It took some coercion, but finally they started to get along; to a point. R’as would push Bane out of the League of Shadows, too concerned with his own mistakes to see how much Talib needed Bane in his life. When the man died trying desperately to kill off Batman, Talib wouldn’t so much as shed a tear; though he’s convinced his father watches his every move.

Talia al Ghul - Somewhere between a mother and a sister, Talia would be at Talib’s side when R’as would go to hard on the boy’s training. She would patch his wounds and hold the boy when he couldn’t sleep at night. After Bane’s banishment Talia took over the role of “parental” figure. It made her own abandonment of the League that much harder. To this day, Talib harbors no ill will towards Talia. He hopes she’s happy and safe, and he wonders if he should have left with her.

Love interest:

Bane - The time of Bane’s banishment was a living hell for Talib, and the young boy had never realized how much he depended on the large man. When R’as died and the League was given to a Talib, he did everything he could to find Bane. This time, it would be his turn to protect him! Somehow in Talib’s fucked up life, Bane went from being a parental figure to being a lover. He didn’t know when it happened or how. He knew it should be disgusting, but it was right to them. No one really knew Talib like Bane did. It had been them for so long, and even after the Pit it still felt mostly like them.

Friends/Allies:

Barsad - The man with the red scarf. Barsad entered into Talib’s life under interesting circumstances; from his understanding he was a mercenary who owed the wrong people money. He wanted to pay off his debts as quickly as possible and return to a normal life. Normally, Barsad would not bite the hand that feeds him, but when he saw how the League, specifically R’as, would just wallop on Talib he had to speak up. For all intents and purposes, Talib was still just a child, and training him to the point of vomiting would do him no good. He would dote on the boy, often smuggling in books and movies for him to be as much of a child as possible. The time between Talia leaving and Bane being found Barsad would be another proxy parent to Talib.

John Blake - The little bird. After the fall of Batman, John tried his hardest to take down The Masked Man. He had not been prepared for, what looked like, a kid to be running Gotham. A kid who had infiltrated Wayne Enterprises from the inside, posing as a bright eyed intern, just wanting to learn from the best company in the world! It was laughable really, that John had tried so hard, and got absolutely nowhere in his pathetic attempt to save Gotham. It took some time, but John was able to be molded into a pretty little lap dog for Talib.

Enemies:

Batman - Bruce Wayne, billionaire, playboy, Batman. He was what was keeping the criminals of Gotham at bay. Talib wasn’t quite sure why they needed Batman dead, but his brief stint as Wayne Enterprises intern made Talib want their tech. So, why not just kill Bruce and rob them blind? The fanatical obsession with taking over Gotham never really stuck with Talib, not like it had with his father. Something about greed being the root of evil or something. Still, he played his part, and took down the Batman with surprising ease. Bruce had been so surprised to see his little intern had been in control of The Masked Man. It was a little sad to see, really. Millions of people had faith in some hero that was too stupid to see the enemy in his face, and once that hero fell everything else fell with it.

The Joker - Something about the Clown is just unsettling. After the fall of Gotham, most of the villains had at least tried to kiss Talib’s ass one way or another, but the Joker had just disappeared from Arkham without a trace. He’s still around, lurking in the shadows, though. His calling card has been left on the corpses of Talib’s men.

Unnamed Vigilante - Someone’s gunning for Talib, but no one knows if he’s a villain, a hero, someone with a death wish, or what. All they know is he’s strapped with one too many guns and runs around in a red mask like an idiot.

Trivia

Fun fact, my stories will Talib will be released backwards??? Since he’s from an RP I’ll basically be transcribing old RPs into a fic format and making it more palatable, if that’s hunky dory with my partner. If not then you guys will get new content that’s completely out of order :D

The secret stems from my RP partner and I having a like “human” au, where like Gotham is just a normal city and Bruce is just a billionaire. They get to live “normal” lives where murder isn’t.... as involved, at least not on Talib’s end. It is on Bane and R’as end.

This is also the most thought I’ve actually put into Talib, and wow he has feelings. what is this???

This is the result of people letting me do fuckin’ crossovers.

#original characters #Gotham is in Ashes #My smol bean. I gave him feelings and hurt myself in the fuckin' process. OOPS.

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very-merry-sioux · 8 years ago

Note

“How can anyone not be afraid of love?”, Mahaad + Atem? ｡◕ ‿ ◕｡

From this meme: [X]

Send me two characters or more and a prompt and I’ll write you a short fic a long mess, how did this happen???

(I was planning to put it in a read more line but idk it doesn’t show on tumblr mobile so… just scroll down the block if you don’t wanna read it)

It’s very rare that he asks Yuugi for anything, not wanting to interfere with his life. But he couldn’t help it, he finally had some clues on what he was, on who he was, on why he was in the Puzzle. He just… he had to make sure it was real.

So he asks Yuugi if he could do something, go out and relax in his body, and he obliges with no hesitation. Encouraging him to take his time, and actually threatening him if he switched control too soon. He asks again if this could be private, and Yuugi is fine with it.

So here he was, at the museum, standing before the tablet again. A tablet of friendship created by a high priest, Isis said. One that had apparently been close to him.

He wonders how much of that was true. It’s just one tablet, one event in his life (one he couldn’t remember).

“You’re interested in Ancient Egypt?”

He turns to find a man leaning against a pillar. He was tall, a little taller than Kaiba, and had long black hair. Hair so dark and silky it looked violet against the light.

Usually he would be wary of strangers, especially those who ask him about Egypt. It was always a theme in their lives that anyone who’s interested in Egypt and approaches them were not nice, to put it mildly.

But this was a museum, and he supposes it was a normal question. Considering he was a teenager staring at an Ancient Egyptian artifact intensely.

“Of sorts,” he says, observing the man some more. Blue eyes, not as vibrant as Anzu’s or intense as Kaiba’s, but still striking in its own way. Like looking into a calm river. “Things related to Ancient Egypt frequently appear in my life,” an understatement, “and it wouldn’t hurt to know more about it.”

The man hums, looking at the tablet then at him. He suspects that he’s looking at the carving of the pharaoh, perhaps comparing their similarities.

“Any questions you wish to ask?”

He blinks.

“I know a lot about Ancient Egypt,” the man says. “I can give you plenty of obscure facts about it. For instance, did you know that onions were considered an aphrodisiac?”

He snorts at that, knowing from Yuugi’s memories that onions were a pretty common ingredient for many dishes. “We must all be horny as hell twenty-four-seven.”

He probably shouldn’t be talking to a stranger this much, this was still Yuugi’s body. And it wouldn’t be good if they met the man again, only to find Yuugi and not him. Yuugi’s friends were enough, he shouldn’t intrude in his partner’s life any more than he already has.

(but it was nice to talk about things that weren’t life-threatening, and it felt nice to be not the Other Yuugi for once)

“Perhaps,” the man says, smiling. “Priests were forbidden to eat them because it might raise their libido, and they wouldn’t be able to perform any of their sacred duties.”

“I take it you like onions, considering this is your opening line to convince me of your Egyptian expertise?” He raises an eyebrow, turning completely towards the stranger. He looked around the same age as Pegasus (though really, most people looked older than the multimillionaire manchild). He was wearing a grey cardigan and black slacks.

It was fascinating how plain and simple the man looked. Yet at the same time, not. There was something about him, beneath the mellow and approachable appearance of the man, he felt there was a kind of… flair to him.

Like something magical.

“I love anything with onions in it.”

“You’d be a horrible priest, then.”

“There were ways around it,” the man says, eyes twinkling with amusement. “Rituals to purify one’s self. Priests weren’t saints, after all.”

“I’m sure there were people who’d still say you’d be a horrible priest.”

“I can think of at least one,” the man chuckles, laughing at some inside joke only he was privy to.

He thinks of Shadi who had barged into people’s soul rooms and even changed them to suit their needs. He thinks of Shadi who had given the Eye to Pegasus when he was obviously grieving and emotionally vulnerable.

He thinks of himself, the first weeks of being out of the Puzzle, punishing Yuugi’s classmates with no hesitation.

Shadi could be considered a priest, couldn’t he? And him… he was a pharaoh, someone who should be above priests.

“None of us are, some less saintly than others,” he says, giving himself a self-deprecating smile. He turns back to look at the tablet, eyes roaming through every symbol and image on it. He had assumed that Isis and her clan would be the only people who knew about the history of Nameless Pharaoh, but considering this was part of an exhibit - and the fact that people like Pegasus, Sugoroku, and even Ryou knew parts of it? It seems a bit silly to think it was some kind of secret.

“Can you tell me anything about them?” He asks, pointing at the two figures above his supposed self and the priest.

The man tilts his head. “Not about the one that looks like you? I would have been curious about that.”

So he did assume he was interested because of that. “I’m,” scared of finding out what kind of person he was, “more curious about them. They look a lot like two Duel Monsters I know.”

The man hums, walking towards the tablet. He was beside him, looking up at the tablet, seemingly unaware of how the teen stiffened in response of their sudden change in proximity.

“I don’t know much about the dragon, only that she was incredibly steadfast and strong,” the man says. “I know more about the man above the pharaoh, he was one of his high priests.”

A high priest, like the one who ordered this tablet to be made? Did he have an item then? “So he couldn’t eat onions too?” He jokes.

“No, much to his dismay, it didn’t stop him though.”

“Much to his dismay?” He raises an eyebrow. “Are we talking about him or you?”

“Why not both?” The man shrugs. “Kill two birds with one stone.”

“Right,” he snorts, looking at the details of Dark Magician in the tablet. So did that mean his monster had been a priest? Was Dark Magician even the person depicted in this tablet? “A high priest… what was special about him that he was carved here?”

One could say that perhaps it was because he was his ace. Kaiba had Blue Eyes White Dragon, while he had Dark Magician. But that was pushing it too far, even for him. This was something that happened thousands of years, he doubted they were carved because both were their favorite cards.

Even he had to draw the line with using fate as an explanation.

“Loyalty perhaps? That would be obvious. Protectiveness? It is depicting a battle, maybe he was one of his best warriors,” the man says. “But I would have to say love.”

“Love,” he repeats flatly.

“You don’t think so?”

He thinks of this tablet, one that was a symbol of friendship that he didn’t remember. This was the only thing in his past that didn’t seem to want to kill him, a symbol of love. He doesn’t know how to handle love, he never considered it was something his past had. “I’m… wary of love.”

“How can you be scared of love?”

“How can you not?” He shoots back. He thinks of Kaiba and how most of his world was his little brother. Thinks about how much he must have lost and taken just to give him a comfortable life.

He thinks of Mokuba, and how much of an unbearable and murderous brat he was before, because he had been drifting away from the only family he had and didn’t know what to do.

He thinks of Jounouchi, living with his drunkard of a father and still hoping they’d regain their father-son bond, willing to give all of his prize money from Duelist Kingdom, a nightmare of a tournament, for his sister.

He thinks of Otogi, who had done horrible things to Yuugi in hopes to make his father proud. He thinks of Ryou, who often looks in longing at passing families. He thinks of Pegasus, a man who couldn’t handle losing his wife well.

He thinks of Yuugi and the burn scars on his hands.

“How can anyone not be scared of love?” He wonders. “You have to endure, you have to lose, you have to hurt… all for love.”

Silence.

“Some would say it’s worth it.”

“Do you think so?” He remembers how much Yuugi wouldn’t let go, remembers how Jounouchi was so torn between leaving the Puzzle behind and taking the risk of wasting time to bring the Puzzle with them too. He would have rather both of them left him, instead of slowly burning in that hell hole. “Love often means sacrifice.”

“You don’t like sacrifice?”

“I don’t like people sacrificing for me, love’s not worth it if they’re hurt because of me.”

“Many would say that sacrificing for a loved one is worth it.”

He laughs, forced and bitter. “And what if the loved one is hurt because of it? What it they forever think that it’s their fault? What if they wished you never loved them, so you’d never become hurt? What then? What if they have nobody else and you’re gone? What if they choose not to have anyone else so that nobody sacrifices for them ever again? Who picks up the pieces when your sacrifice breaks them?”

More silence.

“… I don’t know.”

He laughs again. “That’s a bit selfish, isn’t it? That you wouldn’t consider the feelings of a loved one, even if you justify it with sacrifice.”

He thinks of Yuugi’s thoughts, the moment the Puzzle was put back together, he felt his partner’s desperation in taking him back. The mantra “I want to see him again!” playing over and over until he fainted.

A selfish thought for a selfless act.

Love was scary.

He recalls what Isis had told him, about how he sealed himself in the Puzzle for the greater good. Sacrifice then, to keep his loved ones alive. He wonders vaguely if that high priest, the past incarnation of Kaiba, had been mad at him. That this tablet of friendship was more of a tablet of grief, of pain, of anger.

That seemed more like Kaiba, in his opinion.

“Is that what you feel then?”

Have you been broken? Is what the man means.

He considers it, he doesn’t have any memories to know if he had lost people. If people sacrificed for him, if it had become too much for him.

Yet…

Whenever Yuugi put his life on the line, whenever anyone put their lives on the line, there was something familiar about it that he couldn’t dismiss. Horror. Fear. Pain. Anger.

Resignation. The quiet pleas of “No, not again” echoing in his mind.

“I don’t know,” he whispers. “But, I sometimes feel phantom pains when I see someone I love hurt,” he touches his chest. “Like a thousand knives stabbing me all at once. I’m beginning to wonder if my sacrifice was more for me than for them, if I was just tired… if that was the only thing I knew, because so many who loved me sacrificed as well. It must have been normal.”

He doesn’t know that the man hears, doesn’t see the man wince.

“I’m sorry.”

He jerks at that, blinking. Then he laughs awkwardly. “What are you sorry for? You were offering me trivias and I was the one who rambled,” he places his hands in his pockets. “I should be sorry, I was wasting your time.”

“You would never wast-! … It was not a waste of time, I was happy to help,” the man sighs. He gives him a quiet long stare.

“… What is it?”

“You’re a duelist, correct? One of your decks is a Dark Magician one.”

He blinks, he didn’t expect someone to describe him like that. Most usually say things about him beating Kaiba or Pegasus. And then either running away or demanding a duel. Nobody has ever taken note what his deck was, except Kaiba (and that was usually because he was spending half his time trying to defeat it).

“Here,” the man holds out a card.

He takes it, widens his eyes at the title of the card. “Thousand Knives?”

It was a Dark Magician support card too.

“It’s an apology, for all the pain you had to endure,” the man says with a solemnity that he couldn’t place. “Let all the knives you’ve taken become a weapon against your enemies, not yourself.”

What?

“I can’t-! This isn’t-!” He sputters, looking at the card. It was a very useful card, and something that appealed to him greatly. He imagines using this against monsters more powerful than Dark Magician. It was so tempting but- “I can’t accept this, you don’t know-”

The man wasn’t there.

“… Me?”

#chocolapeanut #ygo #yami #atem #mahad #dark magician #sealshipping #word vomit #i am so sorry #i spent the whole day writing this omg

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amydiddle-fanfiction · 8 years ago

Text

May: Travel is Good for the Soul

@gfhunklescalendar2017 (UNEDITED)

Ao3

A/N: The beginning of a year where once a month I post a fic based of this wonderful calendar. This pic by: @skittlestew

Stanley – Late 1970s

The two things Stanley Pines wanted to get out of this abroad experience were living his dream of leaving the country and to avoid the people he had screwed over in the good old U.S. of A. In just the short month had been in Columbia he had failed both these things. He had barely seen anything worth noting in this country thanks to the job he got set up with. This was the last time he was trusting a guy that said he could get him out of the country easy and set him up with work as soon as he arrived.

What was worse is that he did not just have a really terrible job legal wise but that he had a really terrible job management wise. They had been found out within the month it had been set up.

The law enforcement had caught him and the group at the camp in the jungle where his ‘job’ had been housed. They had handcuffed him without question, though he would not have understood them if they did start to ask questions.

Not that it mattered if they said anything. Just before they law enforcement could drag him to where the others were being held Stan had bolted into the jungle. It had seemed like a great idea at the time with all the trees and foliage to be obstacles, but Stanley had not put into account the fact that everything looked the same and it was hard to see where one was putting one’s foot. Thus, he had fallen off a cliff into the jungle below.

He should have been thankful he was still alive, even praising the God he had given up on, but he was not. What was there to be thankful for when he was hung upside-down in the jungle with no bug spray, a very far away from the ground, and handcuffed to make things even harder? His glasses staying on his face? The fact he got away? None of that mattered if he died up in the jungle canopy.

Stan tried to curl himself up enough so he could reach one of the vines tangled around his legs but a thick one around his middle stopped him. The man could already feel the blood begin to rush to his head as he stayed hanging upside down far above the jungle’s floor. He was trying really hard to not think about the height.

“You got to be kidding me,” he said to himself into the humid air of the surrounding jungle.

A few birds sung overhead as he hung in his future grave and he desperately wanted to flip them off for being so happy but he decided against it. He had things to do and vines to get out of.

Stan tested how far his arms could go before he began. The man reached up to his left pocket with both his hands and tried to wiggle out the lock pick he always had on handy. It took a few tries before he had gotten the metal free and was able to bring it back down to where his head was.

“One point Stan,” he chuckled to himself as he turned his prize around and stuck it gently in his mouth. This was not the first time he would pick handcuff locks with his mouth and he was sure it would not be the last.

Stan wasted no time getting to work once he located the first cuff’s lock. He was just about to put the point in when he felt something brush against his face. His heart froze in his chest as he slowly lifted his head from his bound hands to look at what had touched him.

A snake’s tongue tickled his nose as he came face to face with a very large, very intimidating snake. The large reptile’s tongue darted out again as it smelled the human in front of it. It probably sensed that Stan was doomed and an easy target.

Stanley watched it as it slithered up towards his trapped legs. Just one brush of it and the man unfroze. He tried to jerk his legs back but the vines held him in place. This did not stop him from trying to get away as the creature kept moving over him.

He kicked, and flailed, and almost dropped the lock pick but it seemed like the vines were thick enough to stay. Just as the heat and the fruitlessness of the struggle was about to get to him he heard a snap. Stan did not have a chance to brace himself as he went tumbling to the ground below with a scream.

The pick fell next to him on the soft ground without any sound. The snake was nowhere to be seen.

Stan hesitantly opened his eyes and looked around the jungle floor where he had landed.

“I’m alive?” he said hesitantly. With still bound hands he started to pat himself over in earnest and excitement.

“I’m alive!” He laughed loudly and practically jumped to his feet in excitement. The small victory was short lived.

Just near where he had crash landed he heard talking and hurried footsteps. Stan reached down and grabbed the lock pick before running off into the thick jungle.

Stanford – Late 1980s (?)

Lottocron Nine was Ford’s current place of residence. A gambling world full of strange beings that lived their lives to the will of chance. Everything he had seen had been up to fate. From what to eat in the morning to marriages was at the will of the dice. It was hard to believe the residence of this world even needed casinos since they lived their lives so whimsically.

There was a charm to their life style that Stanford had to admit he liked. Once he understood the rules of the games and their way of life he started to participate. He easily solved the problems of chance in his head to give him the prediction of the best outcomes for himself. Of course, in the rare chance he would lose, he had a few tricks up his sleeves.

Through these methods, Ford soon found himself quite well off in this dimension. New clothes, a good bit of wealth, and respect of a lot of beings and in the suspicious eyes of others. Life on the other side of the hell portal he had created had never been better.

It should have stayed that great but he had fallen into a trap set by greed and envy. A trap with one of the more powerful beings on Lottocron Nine and the desire to never lose. A simple thing had been the prize and little did he know it was a trap.

Stanford slid behind a pillar quickly and pressed his back against the structure. He held his breath as he heard shouting and the beings sent to hunt him down pass him quickly. Only when he lost the sound of their footsteps did he allow himself to relax and pull his prize from his vest pocket.

The little plastic casing it was contained in made it seem very unimpressive. He peered around the pillar cautiously before he opened the little box. Inside was a die. It seemed simple at first glance but the second look one would give it they would notice it was shifting every second. A new symbol would appear and then disappear.

“Infinite outcomes,” Stanford whispered in wonder as he watched the symbols change. “Not even limited to numbers.”

The temptation to roll it and risk the chance of something terrible happening itched at the back of his brain. This dimension had gotten to him. He could almost feel the need for the game controlling his thoughts.

“There you are!”

Stanford jumped as the trance the die had put him in was broken. He barely had a chance to duck before a bat was swung at his head. He turned to try and sprint to safety but found his path blocked by his other pursuer.

“Thought you could escape us huh?” The not short being said as they cracked his knuckles.

“I was merely hoping to delay my capture,” Stanford said as he tried to figure out a way out of his. One hand held tightly to the box and the other twitched on instinct to grab his gun but found it missing from his person. Damn new outfit; he was never changing again.

“Cheaters can’t escape,” the not tall being stated as they hit their bat into their palm, “Now you can come quietly and face your punishment or...,” they smacked their bat against the pillar near Ford’s head.

Stanford was silent for a few seconds as he tried to think of a way out of this. His hand squeezed tighter around the box and the idea struck him. As the plan came about in his head he seemed to relax in front of the two beings’ eyes.

“Alright,” Ford said smoothly, “How about we roll for it. Even numbers I go with you quietly and odd numbers we do this the hard way and I walk free.”

The not tall being lowered their bat and looked at him with interest. Their nature was to never say no to a wager.

“We don’t got no dice,” the not short being said.

Stanford held up his box and took the die out before either of them could get a good look at it, “Well lucky for you both I happen to have one.”

“How do we know it ain’t a cheating die?” the not tall one said.

“Yeah,” their companion said.

“On my honor,” Ford said as he started to shake the die, “It is not a weighted die.”

The two beings seemed to agree with it but they had little choice. Once Stanford’s hand began to shake they got into the game. The two of them watched it as if enthralled. For the first time in a long time, Ford prayed to whatever being was up there that this would go well for him before he let the infinity die go.

The three watched as it rolled across the street. The white die seemed to flash its symbol as it landed. For held his breath and waited for something terrible to happen to him. The two beings walked over to where the die landed.

“What the heck?” the not tall one said.

“What does a circle mean?” the not short one remarked just before the effect happened. It happened in an instant.

Right in front of the die a hole opened. The two beings did not have a chance to cry out as they fell into the dark abyss. Just as soon as it opened it disappeared. This turn of events left Stanford alone in the alley and completely gob smacked.

Hesitantly, the lost human walked over to his fallen die and picked it up. The symbols had gone back to flashing something different every second as if nothing terrible had happened.

“Well, that was lucky.” He said and paused as he watched the symbols change for a few more rounds, “I wonder if it can open a portal.”

#gravity falls #gravity falls fic #gf hunkles calendar 2017 #stan twins #stanley pines #stanford pines #May #drabble #Ford tried his hardest to get the longer drabble the cheeky bastard #Also this was one of my fave pics in the calender #It is going to be hard to see it go until new years when I can flip through the pics all I want #lol

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textsfromwatchpointgibraltar · 8 years ago

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I have... a lot of word docs open so who wants to see a little bit from each thing! yeah! Also u guys should tell me what u think....

Darkness Falls chapter 2 (Serial Killer Zen):

It did not take long for Zenyatta to realize why the Iris had called him back. He could hear its call all around him, not speaking to him but to everyone, trying to reach out to Genji but with no avail. It was evident that the cyborg hadn’t connected to the Iris at all.

“Well?” Zenyatta lifted his head, watching Genji carefully. He had, after several minutes pulled out one of his throwing stars again, flipping it between his fingers as he watched Zenyatta. Zenyatta watched him, slightly mesmerised. “You’re one of the brothers here, right? Aren’t you going to try and convince me to give into the Iris, to accept what I’ve become?”

There was bite, bitterness in his voice, and Zenyatta momentarily wondered how many of his fellows Mondatta had sent in to try and ‘help’ Genji.

Unnamed Depressed Hanzo fic:

They peep and chirp like baby birds, cling to his fingers when Hanzo holds them out over their heads. Their iridescent blue scales shimmer as small talons reach for him, and Hanzo crouches down, staring at them eye to eye. He doesn’t move until the nanny enters, an hour later, Genji in her arms.

Then, it is only to take Genji from the nanny and hold him in his lap, the pair of them staring at the pair of dragons. Genji coos at them, repeating the newly learned word for cucumber, Kyūri, as Hanzo gently holds his tiny hand out to touch the dragons. He giggles once he touches them, kicks his legs out in joy, and before long the two of them are rolling on the floor, playfully wrestling as the dragons watch.

It’s the happiest Hanzo’s been in days.

Unnamed LifeHacks fic:

“I have another question too—when I use my translocator, the feedback plate hooks into the uppermost implant, but I always feel…sick after I use it. I thought at first it was because I’d messed up when I stole the plans from the gorilla, but he repaired the issues with mine and it’s still happening.”

“It’s with your things, right? I just want to see how it sits on your back…” Sombra sat up as Ziegler left the room, listening to her rummage for her translocator in the pile of clothing she’d left in the changing cubby. “Here—put it on, please.”

Sombra kept her back to the doctor, feeling a chill rush over her bare skins, and swiftly clicked the translocator into place.

Then Ziegler swore.

“You said Winston looked at it?” she confirmed once she was finished spitting fire, and Sombra nodded slowly. “Well, he’ll have to do a few more adjustments. It doesn’t line up exactly with your top implant—there’s about two or three inches that don’t connect to it. You are extremely lucky that this hasn’t killed you.”

Sake, Bourbon, and Other Spirits chapter 2 (ghost AU):

“Some air should help clear your head too, Mei. It’s got to be a bit of a shock…” Ana sighed as they headed towards the living quarters, mapping out the fastest way to Mei’s room in her head. “I’m sure once I wind down, it’ll…it’ll hit me.”

In all truthfulness, it already was. She remembered Gerard’s funeral, the tears and speeches, the fight between Gabriel and Jack over who should take the blame for not realizing that Amelie was a sleeper agent… Ana shuddered, unconsciously pulling Mei closer.

“Ana, are you okay?” she looked down to where Mei was looking at her with sad eyes. “I—I’m sure Gerard wouldn’t want you to be sad, same with Jack and Gabriel.”

Something in Ana’s gut clenched at the mention of Gabriel, how he tried his best to shoot her in Egypt, but she doesn’t mention it to Mei. There was no need to worry her even more.

Unnamed Family Apocolypse AU:

The end of the world, in Jack’s mind, wasn’t the most exciting deal. A lifetime of trashy Hollywood movies had his mind awash with mutants and aliens and earthquakes and the earth literally splitting itself apart. In reality, it consisted more of him and Gabriel gathering up the kids and the cat, jumping into the car—which died about 30 miles out of town— and getting out of dodge once things got a little too hairy.

“We ain’t gonna die, are we, dad?” Jesse asked, the 15-year-old sounding miserable behind his mask as they climbed onto yet another hill, nothing but dust and dirt and empty skies ahead of them. Slightly behind them, Gabriel was helping Sombra onto his back, trying to balance the 13-year-old, the cat, and a backpack.

“Course not. We’ll be fine, right Gabe?” Jack replied, trying to keep any small bits of panic out of his speech. It really wouldn’t do to worry them, even as Jack looked at the scribbled map once again.

His grandfather had been a paranoid man, paranoid enough to have created a bunker in the middle of nowhere, and for once Jack was glad that he’d somehow been his favourite of the grandchildren, despite his old world views of Jack’s relationship and job.

The Boy In Shadow (My Original Project):

“Detective Cain? Call’s come in.”

Harold Cain looked up from his paperwork, a depressing batch of numbers and words that told him the city was getting worse and worse as the year progressed, and sighed. Another murder to add to the statistics, another unsolved mystery.

“Right, I’ll be right down.” After a moment, spent putting the papers back into a semi-organized pile, he looked up at the officer who was still standing in the door way. “Is something wrong?”

“Uh, well…” the officer seemed to deflate. “It’s just, well, gosh I don’t think you’re going to like this case much, sir.”

Harold gave the young man a deadpan look. “Carson, I very rarely head up homicide cases that I do like. I very much doubt anyone working here likes a homicide case. But I will take that into consideration.”

Unnamed D.Va and 76 are friends fic:

The map was Korea, cities placed at every instance where they were in the real world, although Jack faintly remembered Busan having to be moved a few kilometres inland after one of the last attacks. There where no build or buy options, no way to make more units than the 6 he appeared to have pre-made, and there was just one goal.

Survive the attack.

“Each unit is a 6 person MEKA squad. We also have one or two extra training squads, because our rate of turn over is so high, but that wasn’t programmed in.” The fact that she could talk about how many of her fellow soldiers had already, and would, die from the omnic was almost chilling. But she was young, and humour had always helped him cope, so there was no way to say if it was the same for her. “The omnic attacks at the end of 10 turns, and can’t be killed yet, only driven away.”

“Is there anyway to kill it, or is driving it away the only option?” Jack asked, and D.Va shook her head.

Unnamed Sombra is 18 and also Alejandra and looks at 76 like a father figure fic:

Huh. Gangs, gangs Jack could deal with. Quick smash and grabs in Talon warehouses and UN controlled Watchpoints, those weren’t anything new or particularly hard anymore. But Vishkar was a different kind of evil. They hid behind shiny metals, bureaucracy, lawyers, and occasionally strike teams.

“I can think of two people you should have contacted instead of me,” he finally said, and Sombra huffed as she waved her hands in the air.

“Lucio is too…good. He’d see me or my symbol and try to bring the whole gang down on my head. And the Vishkar runaway…Vaswani doesn’t trust easily, and there’s no way she’d trust me. Besides, you already saved me once, so why not save me again?” she’d moved a little closer as she spoke, and it took a moment, but Jack was able to figure out the other emotion playing out across Sombra’s face.

“You’re nervous.”

Unnamed Mei/76 fic:

“Why?” she asked, ready to hear a critique on her fighting skills, which she already knew were sub-par, or her physique, something that at least 3 people had already commented on. “I have just the right to be here as you do!”

D.Va muttered under her breath, shifting in her sleep, and 76 looked at the sleeping teenager before shaking his head.

“That’s not what I mean, Doctor. I should clarify—you shouldn’t be on this field. Winston should have picked someone else to go on this mission. It can’t be good for your nerves.”

Doctor. Doc-tor. Not a single person since arriving in Gibraltar called her Doctor, except Athena and rarely Winston. But 76…knew?

Mei shook her head, confused. “I never told you I had a doctorate…did I?” she asked, suddenly feeling very, very tired.

Familial (Pregnant Ana fic):

“If you go and get anyone about this, I’m going to kill you, Wilhelm.” She said, eyes closed and taking deep breaths.

She could hear the large man dithering behind her, before a loud clanking let her know that he’d crouched down behind her. “Ana, if you are injured at all, I should—“

Well, it wasn’t exactly how she was planning on telling him, or any of the rest of her squad-mates, but…

“I’m not injured, I’m just pregnant, Reinhardt.”

With a sigh, she turned against the wall so she could face the larger German man, and almost laughed at how devastated he seemed to look. “Don’t worry, Jack and Gabriel already know. That’s why they’ve been so insufferable about me keeping off the front lines lately.”

Flowers for Assholes (McHanzo flowershop AU):

It was a great night, in Jesse McCree’s opinion.

The day had started out decently enough—Amelie’d stayed over, but Lena cooked breakfast for the three of them before she had to run to work, and Amelie had been almost pleasant to talk to before she too left the apartment for her job.

That left him with way too much time on his hands, and after making sure Ganymede was fed and Bastion was fully charged and not going to run over anything the roomba’d get caught on, he dressed and made his way out of the house.

Firefish (Mermaid AU):

When Hana woke, she still felt shitty but better than before. There was also something tied around her middle, tugging at her body. Looking down, she realized it was a tether of sorts, a light blue rope that connected her to a piece of the reef her and Satya were sitting at.

“Uh…S-Satya?” Hana coughed a little, clearing her throat of something and nothing at all, and the other mermaid looked up to her. “What’s this?”

“Ah. You started to drift away as you slept, and rather than lose sight of you, I tied you down so you wouldn’t float away. It is safer than letting ourselves sleep and drift from each other.” Satya replied, waving with her hand and turning the rope into blue pixels of light. “I have our course plotted—we should arrive off the coast of Antarctica here—“

Hana swam down to Satya, watching in awe as her fingers pointed out exactly where they needed to go, as well as their speed needed to get there.

Unnamed Resident Evil 2/Overwatch AU:

Gabriel Reyes was running late, something that was beyond annoying to him. He was never late, never! Hell, he’d even set his clocks five minutes late just so he’d leave on time.

But the drive from LA to Raccoon City—some small but growing city in the Midwest— was long, and there’d been a huge crash on the freeway right as he started out of the city limits. Ergo, Gabriel was going to be late.

“Goddamnit—“ he hissed to himself as he raced down the empty highway, the sky starting to turn black-blue as night approached. He was being transferred to help deal with the “disaster” in Raccoon, as his boss had called it. Attacks being called the Cannibal Murders outside of the city, an entire special forces sector of the police detachment claiming it was all because of Umbrella Pharmaceuticals, reports of entire city blocks being quarantined and barricaded…

#Not Texts #LeechPosts #Leechy Writes #I HAVE...A LOT OF WIPS #Dragon AU isn't on here b/c I don't have anything new for it yet

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duhragonball · 6 years ago

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[FIC] Luffa: The Legendary Super Saiyan (89/?)

Continuity Note: About 1000 years before the events of Dragon Ball Z.

Previous chapters conveniently available here.

[25 May 234 Before Age. Planet Pflaume.]

Luffa was trapped in Pflaume City. The entire population had been evacuated before her arrival, taking every space-worthy vehicle with them. Beyond the city's outer hull was the deadly atmosphere of the planet Pflaume, an ice giant incapable of supporting carbon-based life forms. For the time being, it seemed the only safe way out of the city was a transpatial portal controlled by the Saiyan King Rehval, and he would not share that passage until Luffa heard him out.

To that end, King Rehval had created a mystic projection of himself, so that he could speak with Luffa directly while simultaneously hiding somewhere in the city. With no other alternative, Luffa began walking through the parkland of Pflaume City's uppermost level. The arcane image of Rehval floated alongside her as she moved, though Rehval himself remained seated upon a stone bench, accompanied by his attendant, Pozet.

"You've gone to a lot of trouble to arrange all of this," Luffa said. "First you created that twisted imitation of my wife, and sent her to murder our own people. Then you convinced me to help you track down the killer, only you left the planet right before we were supposed to make our move. I figured out you were trying to trick me, and followed you here, only to find it was a trap. Only instead of killing me, you want me to listen to your speeches."

"Not a speech, Luffa," Rehval said. "A parlay. You consider me an enemy, and you have good reason not to trust me, but the Saiyan race depends upon a lasting peace between us."

"Then destroy this city," Luffa said. "Even I can't survive out there, and you have the means to return to Planet Saiya. There's your peace."

"I don't want to kill you, Luffa," Rehval said solemnly.

"But you tried!" Luffa shot back. "A couple of years ago, you sent a band of your soldiers to hunt me down. When we first met, you tried to blame that on your father, but today you say that you were the one ruling from the shadows."

"I sent those warriors to take your measure," Rehval explained. "When you first emerged as a Super Saiyan, I only had rumors and speculation to work with. For a time, I was willing to wait and see, but then you founded the Federation, and by then the accounts of your powers were beginning to approach a consensus. I ordered my soldiers to kill you, but in fact it was just a test to see if they could. When none of them survived, I had my answer, and so I put my plan into motion."

"Think about it, Luffa," Pozet said with a cheerful smile. "Those goons never stood a chance against you, so you can't really be that upset over it, can you?"

"That's not it at all," Rehval said to Pozet. "What upsets Luffa is that I would send ten of my loyal warriors to die for nothing. She's upset that I would create you as a living weapon to assassinate my own subjects."

"Oh, right," Pozet said. "The whole compassion thing. She's so unlike the rest of you Saiyans, master. I have to admit, it's very captivating."

"You talk a lot about the good of the Saiyan race, Rehval," Luffa said, ignoring Pozet completely. "But all I ever see is Saiyans getting slaughtered like livestock to further your schemes. I ran into your little 'Honor Guard' on Planet Saiya. They're all dead now. I don't know what you did to those poor bastards, but at least they're finally free of you."

"Means to an end, Luffa," Rehval said. "Maybe you can afford to worry about individual Saiyans, but I have to consider the future of our entire species. I used the Honor Guard to help me keep our people united."

"United as what?" Luffa demanded. "Your mindless slaves?"

"If that's what it takes, then yes!" Rehval said. My grandfather ruled with an iron fist, because he knew he had to do whatever it took to keep that first generation under control. Their descendants would grow up in the kingdom he created, and each new generation would be more accepting of the monarchy."

"And you want me to help you control them," Luffa concluded.

"I want you to become my queen," Rehval replied.

Luffa stopped dead in her tracks.

"You've got to be kidding me," she said.

"This is about more than a political alliance, Luffa," Rehval said. "The alchemical arts have shown me ways to study the history of our race in ways you could hardly imagine. To an extent, I can even chart our future. I don't have all the answers, but I do know that our survival depends upon overcoming the Saiyan wanderlust. Our population has to work together as a united people, or we can never move forward. The Rehval dynasty works, Luffa. It would have worked for other kings in the past, except for one thing. One unavoidable refrain in Saiyan history: you."

"Me," Luffa said.

"Once, I thought the stories of the old heroes were exaggerations at best. But as I looked into my scrying pool, I learned that the strongest of them each made a profound impact on the course of history, and not always for the better. Many of them overthrew whatever government the Saiyans happened to be ruled under at the time. Some of the old heroes were liberators, some were tyrants, others were revolutionaries. You've heard of Yamoshi, haven't you?"

"The God-Saiyan?" Luffa said. "What about him?"

"He was the first," Rehval said. "Or at least, the oldest of the line that I could find with my alchemy. "From him, the lineage of the old heroes began. Yamoshi tried to destroy the Saiyan order of his day. He failed, but the boldness of his attempt reverberated throughout history. Through Asparaj, through Darbock, then Chanisp, and now you."

"If you're so worried about me screwing up your precious plans, then why am I still alive?" Luffa asked.

"You're not listening to me," Rehval said. "Yamoshi's enemies killed him. A thousand years later, another invincible Saiyan arose. Perhaps he agreed with Yamoshi's philosophies, perhaps not. But he was influenced by Yamoshi's life, one way or another. Yamoshi wasn't simply a powerful being. He was a legend. Killing him didn't prevent him from changing the course of history. Yamoshi's enemies may have solved their immediate problems by killing him, but my agenda deals in centuries, not years. With you, I have to be very careful."

"Then it's the next Super Saiyan you're really worried about," Luffa said. "No matter what you do to deal with me, the next Super Saiyan might still upset all your dumb plans."

"Once, I had hoped that if the old heroes weren't a myth, that I might have been one of them," Rehval admitted. "When I discovered the pattern, I dared to hope that the only living Saiyan powerful enough to alter destiny was me. The timing was about right-- it's been about one thousand years since Chanisp's era-- and no one else seemed to fit. But when you emerged, I realized how badly I had miscalculated. I never dreamed that there was a sudden transformation, but in hindsight, it makes a lot of sense."

He stood up, and approached Luffa, until he would have been close enough to touch her, if he had truly been there. Luffa could hear his breath, but couldn't feel it, even though his lips were only inches away from her own.

"This has been the fundamental conflict that defines Saiyan history, Luffa," he said as he pointed to her and back to himself. "There are Saiyans like you, who have greatness thrust upon them, and then there are Saiyans like me, who strive to achieve greatness. The Rehvals of history, we gather power and influence any way we can. Our goals and agendas may vary, but we've all tried to build something out of the Saiyan people. And then, out of nowhere, you Luffas spring up to threaten it all."

He suddenly clapped his hands together and gripped them tightly with his fingers. "The conflict is inevitable. We're Saiyans, after all. And we can't help but be natural rivals. You resent my 'honorless' rise to power, and I see you as an outsider beyond my control. So we do battle, like all the other Rehvals and Luffas before us, and Saiyan civilization is decimated in the struggle. The survivors spend the next millennia rebuilding from the chaos, and then another Rehval and Luffa emerge, and it all crashes down again."

"You make it sound so inevitable," Luffa said. "Like we don't have a choice."

"But we do!" Rehval exclaimed. He turned away from Luffa and began waving his hands excitedly as he paced around. "We've always had a choice, but we never knew the consequences of our decision. Throughout history, you and I have always chosen to be enemies out of instinct and pride! Never considering what our battle would do to the future. Your mother told you the story of Yamoshi, Luffa, but it doesn't mention what happened after the final battle, does it? If it had, then maybe the next Super Saiyan would have tread more carefully."

"So I become your queen," Luffa said. "What does that solve?"

"Everything," Rehval said. "By working together, we can accomplish things our ancestors never would have imagined. You'd be more than just an enforcer, Luffa. In time, the people would see you as a symbol of the state."

"The 'people' hate me," Luffa said. She pointed at her bright yellow hair with one hand and her glowing green eyes with the other. She hadn't powered down from her Super Saiyan form since she arrived in the city. This was enemy territory, after all. "I've been reading their minds, Rehval. Not that I needed to, but they're terrified of what I am."

"I can change that!" Rehval insisted. "They only fear what they don't understand. The Super Saiyans of Legend were forgotten because history is written by the victors, and in the end, it's the Rehvals of history who overcome. We don't have to defeat you Super Saiyans; we just have to outlast you. With you by my side, I can incorporate the Super Saiyan into the state culture. Luffa can be Saiya's hero, just like you're the hero to your alien Federation."

He approached her again, and reached for her hair, though the image of his hand could only pass through the thick shocks of gold.

"Give yourself to me," he said, "and I can make the people worship you as you deserve to be worshiped."

Luffa gasped and then bit her lower lip. Rehval smiled at this.

"That's what you want, isn't it?" he said. "To be acknowledged and appreciated. That's why you returned my kiss, with interest, back on Planet Saiya. You talk about pride, Luffa. Let me indulge that pride. When I'm finished, the first story every Saiyan child will learn from their mothers will be yours."

"You... you can do that?" Luffa asked.

"It would take some time, but with your cooperation, it would be a simple matter to tie your public relations to my own," Rehval assured her. "Your power will legitimize my rule, and my rule will legitimize your power. One day, Saiyan women will dye their hair gold and wear green contact lenses as a fashion statement."

"And all I have to do is marry you."

"We would have to keep up the appearances of a loving couple, but from what I've seen, that wouldn't be a problem for you," Rehval said.

"That was before I found out you'd been lying to me," Luffa said. "I know about your past marriages, the consorts, and a few other women you keep secret. Not to mention the aliens. I'm not sure your public would approve of them."

"Ah," Rehval said.

"Ah," Luffa replied.

"You've probably already guessed that I altered my own memories to fool your telepathic powers," Rehval said. "You read my mind, and saw only what I wanted you to see. That I was trustworthy, completely innocent of any action taken against you, and that I had fallen hopelessly in love with you at first sight."

"And a bachelor," Luffa added.

"I literally removed all of my memories to the contrary before you arrived on Saiya," Rehval explained. "It's an alchemical technique. So I believed everything you saw in my mind just as much as you did. In a sense, that edited version of me really is a bachelor, one deeply infatuated with you. And I could become that man again, if you liked."

"You've got to be kidding me," Luffa said.

"Not at all," Rehval said. He pointed to his head and smiled. "When I came to Pflaume City, I restored my memories to normal, but I enjoy customizing them from time to time. You and I don't have to be lovers, but from time to time, I could make myself into someone who doesn't remember deceiving you, someone better suited to your romantic tastes. You look skeptical, but it's really a simple procedure now that I've--"

"No, I believe you could do it," Luffa said. "I just can't believe that you would."

"It's a very liberating experience," Rehval said. "If you're interested, I could do the same for you. I'd need some time to prepare, though. It took fifteen months for me to prepare the potions for myself, and every brain is different. But I could use an excuse to spend more time in my laboratory, and--"

"Is nothing sacred to you?" Luffa asked. "You'd really mold yourself into anything I want?"

Rehval chuckled. "Is that such a surprise, woman? I've already told you what lengths I'd go to for the Saiyan race. Is it so hard to believe I might stoop to the same levels for you?"

"But your attraction to me was fake," Luffa said.

"Not quite," Rehval said. He gestured to Pozet, who now sat beside him and took his hands in her own. "When I constructed my homunculus, Pozet, I used tissue samples from your wife to give her a resemblance to her. I modified this, of course. Pozet is like a Dorlun, only she has no life of her own, which gives her an unusual perspective on the Dorlun survival ethic. But her love for you is based upon the emotions Zatte possessed when the samples were collected. I used this as a template for the emotions I planted in my own mind."

Involuntarily, Luffa took a step backward. The image of Rehval and Pozet moved toward her to maintain their distance.

"I created Pozet to understand you better, Luffa," Rehval said. "And since she was madly in love with you, I decided to experience that love for myself. When I restored my memories to normal, I found that some of that attraction remained. Again, we don't need to be lovers to reign as king and queen, Luffa. But we can be, and I think we would both enjoy that."

Luffa pointed at Pozet, who was now nibbling Rehval's earlobe. "And what about that?" Luffa asked. "You seem to have your hands full in the romance department."

"Pozet? Well, you could consider her something of a gift," Rehval said. "I wasn't sure your wife would accept your decision, and I wasn't sure you'd have any romantic interest in me, so I thought Pozet would make an acceptable consort for you. A copy of Zatte devoted to you, but safely loyal to me."

"You don't need her anyway," Pozet said as she batted her eyes at Luffa. "My master and I can satisfy you in ways she could never imagine."

"Is that right?" Luffa asked in a low voice.

"Think about it!" Pozet said. She pointed at her chest proudly as she spoke. "I'm not alive, so I can't be killed! Dorluns are such fragile creatures, and so preoccupied with their own safety. It must be so... frustrating for you in the bedroom."

"That's enough, Pozet," Rehval said gently.

"No," Luffa said. "I want to hear this. You said she was a gift to me, right?"

Rehval nodded and made a gesture for Pozet to continue.

"I knew it," Pozet said as she stood up from the bench. "You're just like the master. Underneath all that savage nobility is a total freak, huh? You must have all kinds of wild fantasies, all bottled up inside, because you don't want to play too rough. Well, take a look at this..."

She opened her silken robes and let them drop to her ankles, revealing a sheer negligee that left very little to the imagination. Satisfied that the two Saiyans were paying attention, Pozet turned around in a full circle to give both of them a complete view of her outfit.

"Just like you wife's body, down to the smallest detail," Pozet said. "Except for the skin and hair color, of course."

"I can't argue with that," Luffa said.

"Now, imagine you've got all this, and no limits," Pozet said. "I'll do whatever you tell me, and if you manage to break this body, my master can just make another one for you. Or two, or three..."

"And if I get bored with you?" Luffa asked.

"Then you can stuff me in a crate until you're ready to play with me again," Pozet said with a laugh. "But I'll be thinking about you the entire time..."

"What a vulgar little monster," Luffa muttered. "No wonder you evacuated the city, Rehval. I wouldn't want to be anywhere near this thing in a public setting."

"She's a work in progress," Rehval said. "I've been... training her... in various techniques. All for your benefit, of course, but I won't pretend that it hasn't been stimulating."

"It sounds like you've worked out all the details, Rehval," Luffa said. "Except that I'm already married."

"I leave that matter up to you," Rehval said. "If you can convince her to join our little family, I'll let you keep Zatte as a courtesan. You'll have to divorce her first, naturally, but if you prefer her company to mine, you're welcome to her, so long as you keep it private."

"Oh, I doubt she'd buy into what you're selling," Luffa said. "She's very jealous of our marriage. I don't think she'd approve of sharing me. Besides, the whole evil clone thing would bother her."

"I suspected as much," Rehval said. "Which is why I sent one of my Pozets to stow away on your ship when she left Planet Saiya."

"You mentioned that earlier," Luffa said. "Why did you do that?"

"Because Zatte could make trouble for us," Pozet said. "She was on her way here, to find me, and we didn't want her getting in the way while Master made his proposal to you."

"I don't want to press the issue, Luffa," Rehval said, "but you are trapped in this city, and you will be unless you accept my offer and join me. The three of us can consummate our new alliance in a scenic part of the city, or you can refuse, and I'll leave you imprisoned here until you change your mind. But Zatte will not be coming to pick you up, I've already seen to that."

"I see," Luffa said.

"I realize this must be humiliating for you," Rehval said. "But I urge you to understand that I'm only doing this for the sake of our species. The best thing you can do for everyone involved is to yield to the circumstances."

"All right, just give me a minute to think about this," Luffa said. She turned away from them, but the image simply shifted around as she moved. Luffa rubbed her chin thoughtfully and closed her eyes.

"What's to think about?" Pozet asked impatiently.

"You couldn't understand, my dear," Rehval said. "Luffa's a proud Saiyan woman, and I've cornered her. No matter how much she might want to accept my terms, a surrender is still a surrender."

"I should have worn the latex outfit," Pozet grumbled. "She wouldn't hesitate if she saw me in that."

"You can really make your subjects love me," Luffa finally asked. She pointed to her hair again and added: "Even when I'm like this?"

"Our subjects, Luffa," Rehval assured her. "And yes."

"Can you alter my memories so I won't have to remember what the Tikosi did to me?" she asked.

"That would take time," Rehval said. "But I can do that for you, certainly."

"And you're sure your homunculus can stop Zatte from causing any problems."

"Don't worry about that, sexy," Pozet said with a smile. "There's a good chance she's dead already."

Luffa smiled back. "You're sure about that, are you?" Luffa asked.

"Positive," Pozet replied.

Luffa began to laugh.

As she did, Rehval and Pozet looked at each other and smiled.

Luffa continued laughing.

"Is something wr--?" Rehval started to ask, but Luffa started laughing louder to cut him off.

Rehval and Pozet looked at each other again. This time they were not pleased.

"You're a fool," Luffa finally said. "You actually think you have the advantage here."

"I take it you disagree," Rehval said.

She pointed at Pozet, and her face twisted with revulsion. "How many of those things did you sneak aboard my ship, Rehval?" she asked.

"Just one," he said. "But--"

Luffa laughed again, but not as long this time. "And it's no different from this one that I'm looking at right now. You actually think this cheap copy stands a chance!"

"Posturing won't change the situation, Luffa," Rehval said. "We can speculate all day about whether your wife can defeat a Pozet, but the fact remains--"

"Vengeance Cannon," Luffa suddenly said. Before the others could react, she touched her fingers to her forehead and swung her arm to a spot on the deck just beneath her feet. There was a flash of crimson from her fingertips, and a beam of light ripped through the ground, and down into the lower levels of the city.

"What are you doing?" Rehval asked. "If you fire blindly through the deck like that you could rupture the hull, and--!"

"I'm not firing blindly, Rehval," Luffa said. "I was aiming at a spot six levels down. I just wanted to show you that I could hit it without damaging anything else. Now that I've located you, I don't want you thinking you can slip away before I get to you."

"You're bluffing, Luffa," Rehval said with a sigh. "My ki is completely hidden from you. It would be pointless to--"

"Oh, shut up, Rehval," Luffa said. "Did you actually think I followed you all the way here just to stand around and listen to your stupid plans and philosophies?"

"Honestly, I was somewhat surprised," Rehval said. "But if you had something else in mind, I haven't noticed."

"Then you really weren't paying attention, Rehval," Luffa said. "Back on Planet Saiya, I was trying to show you how to how to help me use my technique, remember?"

She held up her hand and yellow sparkles suddenly appeared over her palm. They floated across the fabric of her gloves and spilled between her fingers, vanishing before they could reach her boots.

"Golden Duster," she said. "You remember how it works, right? I suffuse an area with tiny particles of my own ki, then use it to sense gaps large enough to be people hiding their own ki energy."

"Enough," Rehval said. "You yourself admitted that your technique was useless on a planetary scale, not without someone as strong as me to help you--"

"Yeah, that's true," Luffa said. "If you'd stayed on Planet Saiya, I probably never would have been able to find you on my own. But this is floating city we're on isn't anywhere near as big as a planet, is it? I just needed time to spread the energy. Had to do it slowly so you wouldn't notice me doing it. Fortunately, you're so in love with the sound of your own voice that you gave me all the time I needed, and you never even noticed what I was doing."

"You're lying, Luffa," Rehval said. "You taught me all about the Golden Duster. You couldn't have found me so quickly. Not even you have that kind of skill."

Luffa laughed again. "You want to bet?" she asked.

She held up her index and middle finger of her left hand and smiled as a crimson light appeared on her fingertips. "I'll call my shots. Try not to move around too much. You're so close to the outer hull that I might breach it if I miss."

"Wait, what are you--?!"

She pointed her hand at the floor. "Vengeance Cannon," she said. As she spoke, a beam of red light lanced out from her fingers and tore through the deck, and the deck below that, and the deck below that...

"Down, master!" Pozet cried. She shoved him away, just as the beam of crimson light entered whatever room they were in. The holo-image before Luffa showed her attack striking the floor at Pozet's feet, only to fizzle out before it could penetrate the deck.

"That was a rotten trick, Luffa!" Pozet said. "I'll make sure Zatte suffers for this."

"You think that sort of talk is going to piss me off?" Luffa asked. "Make me reckless enough to throw me off my game? Let's find out. Vengeance Cannon."

She fired again, and this time Pozet looked up at the ceiling, apparently sensing the trajectory of the next attack.

"Pozet, don't bother," Rehval said. "She's found us. All we can do now is--"

Before he could finish, the ceiling above them exploded, causing tons of debris to rain down on their heads. Pozet leaped atop her master's body to protect him, but he shrugged her away and used his own powers to repel anything that might have harmed him.

"She missed?" Pozet asked. "How could she miss? Her first shot was almost perfect!"

Rehval might have explained Luffa's strategy to her, but there was no time. The clouds of dust kicked up by the explosion had obscured their holographic view of Luffa's position. They never noticed that she had moved away from that location, or that she had begun smashing her way down the path her first attack had made through the deckplates. To Rehval's credit, he managed to see Luffa coming, but only as a blurry shadow in the dust. Before he could even say her name, she had landed on the deck less than twenty yards away from them.

"Stay away from him!" Pozet cried. She positioned herself between Luffa and Rehval. "I won't let you--"

Luffa stalked towards them, her eyes wide with fury. "Was this abomination supposed to win me over, Rehval? Did you really think I'd accept it as some sort of consort? It only shows how little you really know about me."

"Bravado's cute and all," Pozet said, "but don't forget who you're dealing with. I have all of Zattie's abilities, Luffa! And I have the poison I used to kill dozens of Saiyans!"

Luffa continued to walk towards them.

"My body's riddled with the stuff. If you so much as touch me, you'll keel over. It doesn't matter how strong you are!"

Luffa didn't stop.

"Master, what do I do?" Pozet asked. "You said she would love me. I wasn't prepared for this! I never expected--!"

Luffa threw a roundhouse kick at Pozet's neck. In a fraction of a second, the homunculus's head was torn away from its body, which collapsed to the floor. The head was engulfed in a yellow flame, and Luffa ignited the decapitated body with a similar flame by stomping on it.

"And that's why I'm not bluffing about my wife," Luffa said. "A true Dorlun would never die so easily, but your puppet doesn't care one way or the other, so it's unprepared to deal with setbacks."

"I see your point," Rehval admitted. "But Pozet doesn't need to kill Zatte to stop her. She can disable your ship's engines. Zatte isn't my enemy in all of this. If she's the survivalist you say she is, she'll assess the situation and save herself."

"That...that's up to her," Luffa said. "I don't need her help to defeat you."

"But you want it, don't you?" Rehval asked. "You want her to be here, if only to share in your victory, but she's not coming this time, Luffa. And you know exactly why that is."

"I betrayed her," Luffa said. "All those nights I was with you, when I should have been with her. If she doesn't know already, your little doll will tell her, isn't that right?"

"It's not too late to accept my offer," Rehval said. "Pozet offends you. I can see that now. But we can convince Zatte to see things our way. We can--"

"You really don't get it, do you?" Luffa shouted. "All you care about is bending and flexing the situation around until it fits your agenda. You don't accept the consequences of your actions, you just look for a loophole. Well it ends here, Your Majesty. Today you and I are going to stand up straight and take everything that's coming to us. If it costs me my marriage, then that's what I deserve. But I promise you, the price you're going to pay will be much higher."

As she stepped towards him, he raised his arms to defend himself, and this was as far as King Rehval could go. From his perspective, he could only see Luffa vanish before his eyes, and in the next moment she was behind him, shoving him to the ground and wrapping her left leg around his. Before he knew what was happening, she had him caught in a leg slicer hold, and she was pulling his heel towards his thigh, with her shin caught in the backside of his knee.

"Here's my counteroffer, Rehval," Luffa said as he cried out in pain. "First, I'm going to pull your knee apart. Then I do the other knee. Quit squirming."

He tried to raise his hand to attack her, and when she noticed this, she fired a burst of energy from her mouth which left the flesh on his arm pink and blistered. Rehval's squeal of agony was unlike anything she would have expected to hear from him. It was music to her ears.

"See that was a bad move," Luffa said. "I was going to get to that arm eventually, but now you've just accelerated my timetable. So I guess I skip ahead to your other arm, unless you need it to open the portal out of this city."

Rehval could only scream.

"I'd urge you to think about this carefully, Rehval. It's for the good of the Saiyan race. Well, maybe not, but to hell with them. If I were you, I'd start worrying about my own skin. But take your time in deciding. I'll be working over your legs for a few minutes at least.

"You really had me fooled for a while there, didn't you?" she went on. "Yeah, it was a really clever plan. You're a smart guy, Rehval. Bet you feel really smart. And handsome? Oh yeah, you're gonna be the best looking man I ever killed. I--!"

Suddenly, she sensed something. It was a ki signature, and a very strong one, stronger than Rehval had ever been able to produce. But it wasn't the intensity of the power that shocked her. Nor was it the mere presence of another person in Pflaume City. That was a mystery in itself, since Luffa had surveyed the entire structure only minutes earlier and found no one else on board. What shook her to her very core was how familiar the ki was, and how impossible it was that she could ever sense it again.

Still, Luffa's warrior instincts prevailed, even in a moment of uncertainty like this. She released her hold on Rehval, and shifted to a chin lock as she pulled him to a standing position and turned her back to the nearest wall that would allow her to face the newcomer.

"Another trick?" Luffa asked Rehval, who was gasping and coughing in her arms. "This one is low, even for you."

"Y-you... sense him... then!" Rehval said. "No... not a trick. A precaution. When you destroyed Pozet, that was his signal to come out and save me."

"Save you?!" Luffa asked. "Why should he...?"

Even as she asked the question, she began to consider the possible answers, and while she couldn't guess the whole story, she knew enough to realize just how terrible the truth would be. She could sense him getting closer, smashing through bulkheads as he approached the section of the city they were in, and then he came into view.

"Stand away from him, woman!" he shouted. He was a Saiyan adolescent. A boy of fifteen years at most, but as he converged on Luffa's position, he carried himself with all the confidence and swagger of a grown man.

She released her grip on Rehval and allowed him to collapse to the floor, but it had nothing to do with the boy's command. So great was her shock that she barely heard the words as he spoke. Indeed he continued speaking, raving about the glory of the Saiyan crown and how this base assault on his sovereign would not go unavenged.

Luffa heard none of this. She was too astonished by what she saw: Her unborn son, alive and nearly grown.

And he was loyal to her worst enemy.

NEXT: Sins of the Fathers

#dragon ball #lssjluffafic #fanfiction #super saiyan #luffa #rehval #pozet #pflaume #the one advantage to holding off on publishing for this long #is that the material looks a lot better to me on the reread #it's fine #everything is fine #well not for luffa but you get the idea

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